


Three Is a Charm (Two Is Not the Same)

by rendawnie



Category: JBJ (Band), Produce 101 (TV)
Genre: Accidental Penis, Alternate Universe, Angst, Arguing, Awkward Flirting, Awkward Sexual Situations, Blind Date, Break Up, Cats, Dating, Drinking, Family, Feelings, Fights, First Dates, Flirting, Friendship, Getting Back Together, Getting to Know Each Other, Happy Ending, Humor, Implied Sexual Content, Karaoke, Light Angst, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Meet the Family, Mentions of past family death, Misunderstandings, Open Relationships, Polyamory, Puppies, Second Chances, Sex Work, Strained Relationships, Swearing, That's a tag now, You're Welcome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-11
Updated: 2017-12-08
Packaged: 2019-01-31 23:11:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 20,913
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12692139
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rendawnie/pseuds/rendawnie
Summary: Somewhere in the middle of a conversation about their weekly quiz night, the topic turned to his long-term relationship with Yongguk, and Kenta had admitted that maybe he was a bit bored, and he thought Yongguk was too, and Taehyun had said he knew just the thing to fix it.





	1. Date Night

“I cannot believe you,” Yongguk whines for the thirtieth time in half an hour, the high pitch and significantly elevated volume of his panicked voice barely muffled by the shower curtain he’s behind.

Kenta rolls his eyes, mashing some buttons on the level he’s currently trying to beat, in the latest video game to catch his attention. Somewhere around the fifteenth minute of this argument he supposes they’re having, Kenta decided to drag the small bedroom T.V. into the bathroom hallway and fire up his game, so he could at least have some entertainment, other than Yongguk losing his mind over practically nothing.

He doesn’t answer Yongguk. He knows there’s no point. He’s just got to wait as patiently as he can while his boyfriend talks himself through this.

“Honestly, I just can’t believe you. What’s so wrong with our relationship? What needs spicing up? We’re spicy! We’re _so_ spicy!!” Yongguk yells. Kenta watches him behind the translucent curtain, flailing uselessly and splashing shampoo from the bottle he’s clutching everywhere but on his head.

Pausing his game calmly, Kenta clears his throat. He doesn’t feel like yelling back, not at all, but he’s at least going to have to speak up if he wants to make this point.

“Sweetheart. I love you dearly. You’re the peanut butter to my jelly. But our relationship is about as spicy as a piece of incredibly mild ginger candy that wouldn't even bother a three-year-old,” Kenta says, and he knows he’s hit exactly the sore spot he was aiming for when Yongguk groans before he’s even finished the last word.

“Really. _Really._ One time. One time, a piece of ginger candy sent me into a nearly endless fit of sneezes and coughs, and you’re never going to let me live it down. You’re the worst.”

Kenta tosses his controller to the floor, crossing his arms even though he knows Yongguk’s not looking. “We were in public.”

“And?” Yongguk sputters back. Kenta can see him aggressively exfoliating his inner thighs. He’s almost won. Yongguk never exfoliates, unless it’s a special occasion.

“And, it was during a movie.”

There’s a pause, and this time Yongguk’s quieter. “...and?”

“And, it was the climax of the movie, and you drooled on that bald guy in front of us while you were mid-choke, and then you loudly blamed it all on me and my ‘exotic taste in cinema snacks’ as we were escorted from the theater by an usher.”

Yongguk sighs. “And.”

Kenta sighs louder. “And I never got to see the end of _The King,_ and I still haven’t seen the end because I’m _bitter,_ okay, and consequently I basically cannot use the internet now because spoilers lurk _everywhere_ and I also basically cannot see our friends because they’re useless heathens who will ruin it for me at every opportunity, and--”

“Fine,” Yongguk says softly. The water shuts off, but he doesn’t get out.

Kenta lets the word sit between them a moment before he repeats it. “Fine?”

“Yeah. Fine. I’ll go. But I just want to say that if you thought we were lacking in spice, you could have just talked to me about it, instead of bringing a whole new penis--a whole new _person_...a...a penis...person...a penis-person...person with a penis...into the scenario.”

Kenta chews on the side of his mouth to keep from laughing. “I know that’s not what you’re mad about. We’ve had...visitors...over before.”

Finally, Yongguk yanks the shower curtain open and steps out, looping a clean towel around his waist and running a hand through his wet hair. Kenta tries not to stare. It’s always difficult, because Yongguk is always so handsome.

“I’m not mad,” Yongguk replies, checking his face in the mirror before he opens the medicine cabinet to grab his toothbrush. “I’m just...nervous.”

Raising an eyebrow, Kenta gets up and slips into the bathroom barefoot, settling himself on top of the closed toilet lid. “Nervous about what?”

Yongguk scoffs, toothbrush shoved into one corner of his mouth. “Come on, Kenta. I’m the boring one, y’know? You’re fun, and interesting, and everyone likes you. You don’t even have to try. I do,” he says, bending down to spit and rinse his mouth out as Kenta frowns.

“That’s not true. You’re not boring. Yesterday you wore those fun socks to work! They had pigs on them!” Kenta points out, hoping it’s enough.

It isn’t. Yongguk just stares at him in the mirror, dread slowly filtering down over his expression.

Kenta sighs, throwing his hands up. “Well, I don’t think you’re boring. I never have. And maybe this _person_ will agree with me.”

He follows Yongguk out of the bathroom, doesn’t say anything when his boyfriend nearly trips over the television set Kenta left in the hallway, and flops down on their bed while Yongguk goes through his side of the closet, half-dressed in a pair of freshly ironed slacks.

“This person. Does this person have a name?” Yongguk asks, holding a sweater to his chest and raising an eyebrow at Kenta.

Kenta shakes his head no to the sweater in question, digging his phone out of his pocket as Yongguk dives back in for the next possibility. He scrolls through his emails quickly, finding the thread between he and Taehyun that started this whole thing. Somewhere in the middle of a conversation about their weekly quiz night, the topic turned to his long-term relationship with Yongguk, and Kenta had admitted that maybe he was a bit bored, and he thought Yongguk was too, and Taehyun had said he knew just the thing to fix it.

“Donghan,” Kenta answers when his eyes land on the name Yongguk had requested. “Kim Donghan.”

“Donghan,” Yongguk echoes. “I guess he doesn’t _sound_ like a serial killer. There are probably normal people named Donghan.”

“Probably,” Kenta responds, still glossing over the emails he and Taehyun had exchanged for other pertinent information.

“Quoth Taehyun: ‘I highly recommend him. 4.5 out of 5 stars,’” Kenta reports, and there’s an indignant-sounding snort just before Yongguk surfaces from the closet again, this time with a black button-down that Kenta likes better. He gives Yongguk a thumbs up, and Yongguk’s slipping the shirt over his shoulders when he gets around to finishing his thought.

“4.5 out of 5 stars. What is this, Yelp for cock??” he wonders incredulously, and Kenta has honestly lost track of how many times he’s rolled his eyes tonight, and it’s only just begun.

He stretches out on the bed, staring at the ceiling instead of at Yongguk. “There’s not going to be any cock. At least, not tonight. We’re just going to...I don’t know, we’re just going to _meet_ the guy. Hang out. Have a meal. Whatever. He’s a friend of Taehyun’s from somewhere. I highly doubt it’s from _cock,_ ” Kenta emphasizes, because now he can see how uncomfortable Yongguk’s getting with the word, and Yongguk may be great at asserting power in the bedroom, but outside of it, he’s so shy that the tips of his ears are turning pink with every utterance, and Kenta _loves it._

He gets up, sidling over to Yongguk, pressing up behind him as Yongguk faces the full-length mirror, smoothing his shirt anxiously. Kenta’s nibbling at one little pink ear tip for a good twenty seconds before Yongguk notices, before he calms down enough to focus on anything but his own neuroses. When he does, Kenta watches as his eyes darken ever so slightly, and his hands slide down to wrap around Kenta’s, settled on Yongguk’s belt loops casually.

“Baby…” Yongguk murmurs, and he’s trying to make it into a warning and Kenta knows it, but the low rumble of it just makes him tingly instead.

“Mmm?” Kenta manages to reply, and suddenly he’s the one that’s distracted, distracted thinking of all the furniture in the house Yongguk’s going to bend him over when they get back from this blind dinner-date.

Yongguk squeezes Kenta’s hands, turning around and brushing his lips against his boyfriend’s forehead, smirking a little. “Let’s go. We’re already late to meet our penis-person.”

*

Kenta watches Yongguk stare at the silverware lined up next to his plate, or else he’s staring through it, into the nothingness of the proverbial existential void. Kenta can’t quite tell. He’s not sure it matters which it actually is.

They’ve been at the restaurant for ten minutes, waiting, and Yongguk’s back to panicking, and since they were already late when they arrived, Donghan is now officially Quite Late.

Kenta watches and Yongguk stares and finally, Kenta takes a deep swig of his drink and asks, “Whatcha doin’ there, babe?”

Yongguk sits up with a start, blinking and looking around a bit too wildly for Kenta’s preferred level of contentment. “Trying to figure out if I should stab myself in the neck with the salad fork or the steak knife,” he replies, and he’s trying to sound sarcastic. Kenta doesn’t have the heart or the patience to tell him that he just sounds terrified. Clearing his throat, Kenta swiftly removes all the cutlery from Yongguk’s general vicinity. He thinks for a minute, and decides to confiscate the cloth napkin, too. Just in case.

Yongguk sighs. “The later he is, the more nervous I get.”

“You don’t say,” Kenta answers mildly.

Yongguk is about to reply, but mercifully, they’re both saved from the undoubtedly pointless discussion by another clearing of the throat. Kenta’s reasonably sure it didn’t come from either of them, and Yongguk appears to be frozen in place, so he takes it upon himself to look up.

The guy looking back at him is tall, dark, and attractive. _Score one for Taehyun._

Kenta rises from his chair, yanking Yongguk up by his shirt collar. Yongguk tries to protest. It comes out more like a sad, upsetting-for-everyone groan. Kenta ignores it and soldiers on.

“Donghan?” he says, smiling and holding out his hand. “I’m Kenta. This is my boyfriend, Yongguk.”

Donghan doesn’t smile, but Kenta doesn’t feel like he’s being rude. “Yeah. Donghan. Hey.” He doesn’t shake Kenta’s hand. He drops into the remaining chair at their table, helping himself to a glass of water poured from the pitcher in the middle of their plates, and drinks it all in one go.

They’re all sitting again. Kenta watches quietly. Yongguk glares at the silverware Kenta took away from him.

The silence drags on for too long, before Donghan finally breaks it.

“Sorry I’m late. I had to rush to get here from class. Traffic was shit, nobody respects motorcycle drivers anymore.”

It’s at this point that Kenta realizes that Taehyun didn’t actually tell him _anything_ about Donghan, beyond his dazzling Yelp for cock review. He’s thinking of some questions, things he’d like to know or that he and Yongguk should collectively learn about this guy, when Yongguk speaks up for the first time.

“You have a cat,” he says, aiming the non-question somewhere in Donghan’s direction. Kenta is mildly appalled. Sure, Yongguk can be shy and awkward, but he’s really pulling out all the stops as far as appearing socially inept, suddenly, tonight, when it matters more than usual and when Kenta would most definitely prefer that he just kind of _not._

“Uh,” Donghan begins, looking at Yongguk like he’s got three very handsome heads. “Yeah? I do? How did you…”

Yongguk sits forward, resting his chin in his hands. “You’ve got a button that says ‘I brake for felines’ on your jacket. Not to mention that you’re literally covered in cat hair.”

Kenta briefly considers using Yongguk’s salad fork for less than culinary purposes. He’s trying to decide whether he’d kill himself or Yongguk first, when Donghan smiles for the first time, and it catches Kenta completely off guard.

Donghan looks tough. He does. He’s young, Kenta can tell that much, but he makes an effort to look older than his years. Except, it’s all ruined when he breaks out into the purest grin Kenta’s ever seen and starts to laugh, brushing his hands over his hairy jeans uselessly, trying to rid them of the telltale shedded fur. He laughs for a long time, actually, until Yongguk starts to laugh too and Kenta joins in, but his is more like absolute panic laughter because he has no idea what the _fuck_ is going on anymore.

Yongguk wipes his eyes, sipping his glass of wine and still giggling a little. “I have a cat too. I can spot a fellow cat lover at twenty paces.”

Kenta adds _at twenty paces_ to the list of Yongguk-isms he keeps a mental note of, that nobody has actually said in this century.

“I have two cats,” Yongguk continues. “Tolbi and Lucy, but Lucy lives with my friend Sihyun now. What about you?”

Donghan’s still smiling. “Just one. It’s actually kind of a new thing? Like...yesterday, new? I always wanted a cat but I couldn’t have one before because my...um, my dad...was allergic, so now that I’ve got my own place, it was basically first on my list of things to do. She doesn’t have a name yet, but, like...I love her? So much?” Donghan trails off. He seems surprised that he’s talking, that he’s successfully participating in the conversation. The look on his face matches the one on Yongguk’s, almost as if they’re both stunned by their own bursts of extroversion.

Yongguk glances at Kenta and goes quiet again. He looks tired, like that was all the social interaction he might have been capable of until he’s got some food in his stomach to even him out again. Kenta takes the cue as smoothly as he can.

It only takes until the waiter arrives to write down their orders for Kenta to find out that Kim Donghan is nineteen. He’s a student at the university across town, studying engineering, but he doesn’t really like it. He knows Taehyun “from somewhere”, and they’ve been friends “for a while”. That part is definitely suspicious, but Kenta knows Taehyun, too, and he knows that Taehyun is the kind of person who just collects friends and acquaintances everywhere he goes, and he goes a lot of places, so Kenta dismisses the shaky story for now. He’ll remember to ask again later, when it matters.

Once dinner is served, Yongguk comes back to himself a little bit, managing to ask Donghan a few questions not related to cats and even, god love him, flirt a little. Kenta watches proudly, like a mom at her kid’s first ballet recital, or some other metaphor that’s way less awkward and inappropriate. He’s happy, is the point. He’s always happy when other people get to see the real Yongguk, instead of the antisocial turtle he comes off as sometimes.

The three of them eat, and the conversation flows easily through the meal, and through a shared dessert (Kenta is almost positive Yongguk and Donghan aren’t aware of how obvious it is that they’re each trying to one up the other via a complicated series of seductive spoon lickings and offhandedly orgasmic noises after every bite of tiramisu), and Kenta is wondering if they shouldn’t maybe invite Donghan over to their place for a drink after this, when Yongguk blurts, “Do you wanna come over and meet my cat?”

Donghan just grins again.

*

“Okay, guest bathroom’s down the hall, couch is through there in the living room, and I’m going to help Yongguk find Tolbi. Make yourself at home,” Kenta tells Donghan, waving his hands around their modest living space grandly to illustrate each casual instruction and introduction. Donghan sits on the aforementioned couch, and Kenta nods, following Yongguk back to their bedroom. He doesn’t need to _find_ the cat. The cat is always waiting for Yongguk when he comes home, sitting on their bed with an incredulous look full of _somebody needs to clean my poop box immediately. I vote Kenta,_ because that’s what always ends up happening.

He doesn’t need to find the cat. Kenta just wants to talk to him in private, gauge how he’s feeling, possibly do any necessary damage control in case Yongguk’s just extra good at hiding his freakouts tonight. He seems weirdly at ease, he’s _been_ weirdly at ease ever since the cat conversation that started dinner off. It’s...weird.

Yongguk’s standing just inside the closet door, stripping off his shirt and pants and trading them for clothes more suited to lounging around, when Kenta wanders into the room behind him and asks, “Are you okay? Are you, like, _actually_ okay?”

Yongguk chuckles, hanging his slacks up. “Of course. Why?”

Kenta regards him suspiciously. “Because you seem okay.”

Yongguk gives him a pleasantly baffled look, pulling on a pair of linen, drawstring trousers. “I don’t follow, honey.”

Rolling his eyes, Kenta heaves out a gush of air, blowing it upward and into his perfectly coiffed coiffure. _Oh well._

“I’ve just never seen you talk to a near-stranger that much. Like. In my life. In my entire life,” Kenta says, and he feels it’s a logical concern.

Yongguk’s head pops out of the top of his pullover before he replies. “Well, I like him. I’m comfortable talking to him. We have stuff in common.”

“Cats,” Kenta provides, and he hopes it doesn’t sound as deadpan as it does in his mind.

“And tiramisu,” Yongguk adds. Kenta snorts, but he doesn’t dispute it.

Yongguk crosses over to the bed, pulling Kenta up gently and cupping his boyfriend’s face in his hands. “Listen, don’t worry about me, okay? I’m having fun. I’m having a nice time. Let’s not overthink it.” He kisses Kenta’s eyelids and his nose and his cheeks, and Kenta is blushing and also swiftly deciding that now is not the time to mention that he’s never ever the one in danger of overthinking anything, and that Yongguk’s entire statement was dripping in rich amounts of irony. Later. They can go over that later. Along with _at twenty paces._

“Come on,” Yongguk says, giving Kenta a little smile when he pulls back. “We’d better get out there before he wanders away without meeting the love of my life.”

Kenta’s mouth drops open in mock-offense, but he knows this game well. He knows what will happen next. Yongguk will smirk, add “Comma, Cat category,” and Kenta will not be able to control his heart eyes because he’s so in love with Yongguk’s dorkiness that it’s not even funny, and he doesn’t mind at all, most days. They leave the bedroom, and Tolbi follows them, because the cat follows Yongguk everywhere, and when the three of them reach the living room, somehow the only thing Kenta isn’t expecting to find there is Kim Donghan, naked and laying across their couch, waiting. And texting.

Kenta can almost hear Yongguk’s brain short-circuiting, probably crunching the numbers on whether they can afford to sterilize and deep clean their couch after a near-stranger’s bare ass touched it, or if they should just go ahead and burn it and get a new one. Kenta would probably be short-circuiting, too, but he’s just kind of staring at Donghan’s junk. Apparently.

_Shit. I guess I was wrong about our cock-less evening._

It’s a nice cock. Not that it matters.

Donghan notices them, finally, and he tosses his phone away guiltily, standing up, a come-hither grin sliding onto his face. Kenta is so, so confused. Not... _entirely_ opposed? But definitely very confused.

Yongguk is silent next to him, but Kenta can feel him quaking with what could be rage, indignance, or sheer disbelief. Possibly a combination of all three.

Tolbi is gone again. _Smart cat._

“So, uh, usually I ask for payment first, but, I mean, you guys bought me dinner, so like...you just wanna go ahead and do this? I can do it any way you want, just tell me if there’s any hard no’s, like maybe no food or nothing outdoors, never go ass to mouth, things like that. Personally, I don’t have many limits,” Donghan says, and incredibly, he’s behaving as if none of those sentences were abnormal in the slightest.

Kenta is so, _so_ confused.

No one says anything for nearly a solid minute. One of the three people in this room may be hyperventilating. Kenta can’t tell if it's him or not.

Finally, Yongguk comes up with something.

“What the _fuck._ ”


	2. Puppy Day

Taehyun has been laughing at Kenta for twenty-six minutes.

More like howling, really. Or cackling.

Kenta knows it’s been twenty-six minutes because he’s taken to staring at the clock positioned at the bottom right of the screen on his work computer, if only to avoid what he really wants to do, which is print out a giant picture of Taehyun on the nice printer two offices down from him, tape it to the back of his door, and use it as a dart board.

Taehyun’s still snickering when Kenta finally thinks of something to say. Unfortunately, it’s nowhere near as cutting as he’d like.

“You can stop now.”

The snickers barely die down.

“No, I really can’t, Kenta. This whole thing is too good. I can’t believe you thought it was just a _date._ My god. A date! Who even dates anymore?? We’re in the age of Tinder and Grindr, my friend. No one has time to date. There’s only time to swipe right and _bang._ ” Taehyun chortles the words out, and Kenta’s eyes narrow in displeasure.

“You really fucking pissed Yongguk off, y’know. Which in turn pissed me off, because I had to spend the rest of the night listening to him rant about you and all the things he wanted to do to your entire person in revenge. None of which will actually happen, mind you, because this is Yongguk we’re talking about, so instead I’m the one calling you to discuss this.”

Taehyun manages to limit himself to a few lone giggles. “Fine. Let’s discuss this.”

Kenta lets out a long breath between his teeth. “Let’s. Let’s discuss the fact that you told me Donghan was a _friend_ of yours that you thought we’d ‘really like’, because we had ‘a lot in common’, when in actuality, he is a _literal hooker_ \--”

“He _is_ a friend of mine. And he's not a hooker. He’s a call boy,” Taehyun interrupts. “And I hardly see why it matters. It’s just a job, like any other job. Just because he was under the impression--”

“ _Because you gave him the impression_ ,” Kenta hisses, tossing the pencil in his hand across his desk so hard that it bounces away and clatters against the wall. He’s not really sure why he has a pencil in his office, anyway. He’s more of a pen guy.

Anyway.

“Sure, because I gave him the impression, I guess,” Taehyun says blithely. “Just because he was under the impression that he was getting paid for the date, doesn’t make it any less authentic.”

“Actually, it does. It absolutely does. That’s what money does to things. It un-authenticates them.” Kenta is way beyond caring that he’s not even using real words anymore.

Taehyun groans. “Kenta. Look. Did you have fun hanging out with him?”

Kenta leans back so far in his chair that he nearly falls out of it. “I suppose we did, Taehyun. Y’know, before he pulled his dick out and put it on our leather goddamn couch.”

“I highly doubt he actually put his balls on your couch,” Taehyun replies.

Kenta starts to wonder whether that good printer two offices down is occupied, at the moment.

“And even if he _did,_ even if a nice dude like Donghan teabagged your couch, it doesn’t change the fact that you had fun. You had things in common. You had things to talk about. Yongguk _publicly enjoyed himself,_ ” Taehyun emphasizes, and Kenta will absolutely not be admitting that he’s at least half right.

“Okay, Taehyun. Let’s just...let’s just work on a scenario, here,” Kenta starts, rubbing his eyes tiredly with the hand not holding the phone to his ear. “Let’s just say, in theory, that Yongguk and I enjoyed our date with Donghan. We enjoyed dinner, and we enjoyed talking to him and hanging out with him. Maybe that’s true. But then what? He’s still a call boy. He was going to leave our date and go to another job no matter what.”

Taehyun doesn’t answer for a moment, and Kenta’s not sure why he waits for it, except to see what kind of philosophical fuckboy horseshit wisdom Taehyun intends to pull on him when he gets around to a reply.

Surprisingly, Taehyun bypasses his usual tricks. First time for everything, Kenta guesses.

“Listen, jobs aren’t permanent. No one’s a call boy forever. I think if you liked Donghan, and he liked you, you should try to see him again and maybe talk about it,” Taehyun says, and his voice is softer. Uncharacteristically serious. Kenta is fairly sure this is the first sign of the apocalypse.

“Taehyun, we have no way of knowing if he liked us. He was doing his _job._ That’s become abundantly clear to me.” Kenta sighs. He’s frowned too much today. In the last two days, really, since The Date That Should Never Have Been. He doesn’t like frowning.

Taehyun matches his sigh. “He _told_ me he likes you. Both of you. He told me he had a really good time on the date, and for the record, he feels like shit for making a fool of himself. He made _me_ feel like shit for making him make a fool of himself.”

“Good,” Kenta says without hesitation.

Taehyun’s second sigh is longer. “I _am_ sorry I caused a problem. I really am. That wasn’t what I was trying to do.”

“I know,” Kenta replies, because he _does_ know. Taehyun always has good intentions. It’s just that his execution is...irretrievably flawed, sometimes.

“I get it if you don’t want to give it another shot with Donghan. There are red flags.”

Kenta snorts. “To say the least.”

“Yeah, yeah. I won’t play matchmaker anymore, all right? Swear. I don’t want either of you to hate me because of this,” Taehyun says quietly. Kenta can tell he’s really and truly sorry. What he _can’t_ tell is how much longer his wounded pride will let this theater of pain he’s unleashing in Taehyun’s direction continue.

As it turns out, it only continues for another forty seconds or so. After that, they’re back to talking about quiz night, and by the time Kenta hangs up, he feels better about everything.

He feels better about everything, unless the fact that he can’t stop thinking about Donghan and his goofy smile and his stupid cat hair covered jeans and the way Yongguk smiled at both of them when they were all together counts.

He’s almost sure that doesn’t count.

*

“Explain to me again why we’re doing this,” Yongguk grumbles, pulling his coat tighter around himself as he and Kenta pass through the gates in front of the animal shelter. It’s the first day of February, and it’s bitterly cold, even for this time of year, a fact that Kenta hadn’t really considered when he got the reminder email for Puppy Day, also known as the Greatest Day of the Year.

Every February, the local animal shelter hosted a special event for the dogs who were most in need of adoption. Volunteers were welcome, welcome to come and pet the puppies to their heart’s content, as long as they also helped feed them and give them baths and played with them and assisted in finding their forever families. It was a day for all the regular employees to relax, sit back, and let Kenta do their jobs. All their jobs, if he could manage it. This will be his fourth go-round as a Puppy Day volunteer. This is his Christmas, a sweet respite from a world full of cats.

This will be Yongguk’s first Puppy Day.

“We’re doing this,” Kenta says, trying to talk around his teeth chattering, “because you’ve spent two weeks moping around--”

“Have not,” Yongguk protests, but Kenta can tell his heart’s not in it.

“You’ve spent _two weeks_ moping around,” he repeats for good measure, “since...whatever happened...happened…”

They try not to say Donghan’s name out loud. The syllables might be cursed. Too risky.

Yongguk frowns, shoving his mittened hands in the pockets of his coat, but he doesn’t try to argue again, so Kenta goes on.

“...And I’m tired of seeing you like this. I want you to be happy. Puppy Day makes me happy, so, I want to share puppies with you!” Kenta does his best to sound lighthearted and cheerful and like his carefree self, but he’s also kind of busy worrying about whether Yongguk will well and truly detest Puppy Day, so it doesn’t quite have the _zing_ he’d like it to, but he tried. He’s _trying._

Yongguk heaves a world-weary sigh. “Babe, you know I’m really more of a cat person, and, I mean, I think this is really sweet of you, I do, but…”

Kenta whirls around, pressing one finger to Yongguk’s lips, and for some reason, Yongguk actually stops talking.

“No. Shut up. We’re going to this Puppy Day, and you’re going to like it, you’re going to have fun and you’re going to meet a puppy you love more than any other puppy in the whole wide puppy world, and that’s that. That’s what we’re doing today.” By the time Kenta’s done preaching the Puppy Day gospel, he’s nearly yelling. It’s appropriate, he feels, for a topic he’s so impassioned about.

With Kenta’s finger still on his lips, Yongguk nods obediently. Kenta moves the finger, and they keep walking towards the door, decorated with balloons in the shape of dog bones and there’s canine-friendly edible confetti scattered over the lawn, and Kenta lets himself get excited again. By the time they make it inside, he’s nearly bouncing, bobbing from foot to foot and side to side and Yongguk is gazing at him fondly and maybe, just maybe, Kenta thinks with a certain degree of satisfaction, this can work.

It could have worked, really. It could have been magnificent.

It’s magnificent for two whole hours, actually. Kenta finds a favorite puppy right away. They have a ball together, playing fetch and rolling around in the grass and chasing each other around the enclosed courtyard. Yongguk watches from the sidelines, sitting close but not too close to a senior poodle who mostly just wants to nap. Every so often, Kenta catches Yongguk watching the poodle snooze, and he’s almost one hundred percent positive the look on Yongguk’s face isn’t total disdain. Probably.

Somewhere around the hour mark, Kenta thinks he sees Yongguk pet the poodle’s head for just a second. He decides to chalk that one up to adrenaline-fueled delirium. It’s just too improbable to be real.

Puppy Day is going _magnificently._

Until.

It’s been almost two hours. Two hours of glorious puppy time, and Yongguk is actually smiling and Kenta is sitting next to him and they’re both holding very good, wriggly boys in their arms and smiling at each _other,_ and Kenta is finally starting to truly believe that things might turn out okay, when a Frisbee hits him square in the forehead.

He falls over almost immediately, which is moderately humiliating, but he was caught off _guard,_ okay, and even worse than that, his arms fly open and the puppy he’s been bonding with goes scampering away. _Traitor._

Kenta’s laying on his back on the grass, blinking up into the muted, overcast February sunlight and trying to understand what’s going on. Yongguk’s bending over him, asking him if he’s all right. He’s all right, he supposes, except he’s not, because the next thing he hears is a different, uncomfortably familiar voice. One he never wanted to hear again, if he’s not being honest at all.

“Shit. Oh, shit, I’m so sorry. Are you okay, man?”

As Kenta stares up blearily, trying to figure out how to stop this from happening and failing because the whack he took to the forehead and the resulting ache are taking precedence in his brain at the moment, he sees Kim Donghan, in the flesh, appear from parts unknown and squat down next to Yongguk without even sparing him a glance. Yongguk is doing enough glancing for the both of them, now. Glancing, and glaring.

Kenta wants to say something that will make all of this go away. He’s in the middle of formulating those magic words, actually, when Donghan’s face changes from concern, to abject fear and regret.

“Kenta?” Donghan’s squinting down at him. Kenta thinks he sort of nods in response. There’s still no magic words on the tip of his tongue. Kenta’s eyes flick over to Yongguk, and Donghan’s follow, and once he’s hit with the full extent of Yongguk’s current irritation, Donghan straightens up immediately, backing up a few steps, enough to remove himself from their little trio almost entirely.

“Uh...yeah. Anyway. I’m sorry. I’m gonna...I’m just gonna go…” Donghan stumbles over the words, looking lost and upset with himself, and suddenly, Kenta just can’t. He can’t let it end like this. He sits up fast, way too fast for having just been beaned in the cranium with an bizarrely weighty Frisbee. He’s holding his forehead when he forces himself to stand up, and Kenta ignores the fact that he has to immediately lean on Yongguk’s broad shoulders to power through the unwanted head rush. It doesn’t matter. He’s got Things to Say.

“Why are you at Puppy Day?” Kenta demands more than asks as Yongguk wraps an arm around his waist, holding him up easily. He doesn’t have to look to know that Yongguk is still steadfastly refusing to grace Donghan with even a polite nod of recognition.

It’s not really what he wanted to say, not what he even cares about, but Kenta figures it’s a good place to start. He wants this to play out in as civilized a manner as possible.

Donghan frowns a little. “I think Freckles is lonely. Freckles is what I named my cat, by the way, but anyway, yeah, I think she’s lonely, so I’m here to look for a puppy friend for her. Even though there’s literally no room in my apartment for a dog. I’m just. I don’t know. I think we’re both lonely,” he finishes, the look on his face telling Kenta that he really didn’t mean to say the last bit of that, not out loud.

Yongguk snorts, and Kenta looks up just in time to see him execute an impressively over the top eyeroll. “She’s not _lonely,_ you tool. Cats are prideful, solitary creatures. Bored and lonely are two different things. Do you even have any cat toys? A scratching post? Cat condo? _Anything_?”

Scratching the back of his neck, Donghan frowns harder. “No, I...I didn’t know I was supposed to get any of that. I’m just kind of flying by the seat of my pants, here,” he admits with a small, sheepish grin. Kenta valiantly tries not to focus on how incredibly cute he is.

“Ugh,” Yongguk replies eloquently. “I mean, at least you _have_ pants on now,” he jabs, and Kenta is torn between thinking that comment was radically unnecessary, and being outrageously amused by it. He settles for a combination of both, snickering and giving Yongguk as stern a look as he’s capable of at the moment, in this strange situation and with a knot forming on his head.

Donghan sighs. “Okay. I guess that’s fair. Just lay it on me, all right? Get it all out of your system, and then maybe we can start over and at least be friends, because I’d really like to be friends with both of you.” He takes another step back, spreading his arms as if he’s ready to receive any and all ill-advised insults Kenta and Yongguk can hurl his way, except Kenta doesn’t have any. He used them all on Taehyun already, and Donghan doesn’t deserve them. He hopes Yongguk knows that, too.

Speaking of Yongguk, Kenta’s boyfriend is just staring at Donghan in vague disbelief now, not saying much of anything at all.

Kenta waits.

Donghan waits.

Yongguk makes them wait a while.

Finally, he sighs. He grabs Donghan by the arm with one hand, Kenta with the other, and as they’re being half-dragged, half-led away from Puppy Day, Yongguk mutters, “Let’s just go get you some cat toys, and then maybe, Donghan. Maybe.”

Kenta tries to hide his grin. He’s worried it might still look slightly unhinged, thanks to the aftershocks of the spontaneous Frisbee attack.

*

Later in the day, after an awkward trip to a nearby pet store, followed by a slightly less awkward coffee break at the shop next door, Kenta and Yongguk are in Donghan’s studio apartment, which is most definitely way too small for a dog, and Yongguk and Freckles the cat are already best friends.

Kenta watches with fond amusement as Yongguk curls up on Donghan’s bed with the cat tucked under one arm. Donghan returns from the kitchen area, offering Kenta a soda and sitting down next to him on the floor. The bed is the only piece of furniture in the entire place, Kenta notices. They clink their glass bottles together, and Kenta is taking his first sip, when Donghan speaks up quietly.

“Thank you,” he says, looking at Kenta shyly. “Thank you for giving me another chance.”

Kenta smiles a little in spite of himself, shrugging. “It wasn’t your fault.”

Donghan chuckles. “No, it wasn’t, but it’s still embarrassing as hell.”

Kenta bites his lip. He doesn’t want to flirt with Donghan. He doesn’t. It wouldn’t be good for anyone. He hasn’t even had a chance to ask Yongguk how he’s feeling about everything. He has no idea what the plan is, here.

He doesn’t want to flirt with Donghan. But he does anyway, because Donghan has the sparkliest eyes and nicest smile Kenta’s seen in a minute, and he can’t help himself.

“I wouldn’t be embarrassed,” he replies after a while. “It looked like you had a pretty good thing going on down there,” Kenta says, throwing an obvious glance down between Donghan’s legs. It makes Donghan squirm, makes him pull a blanket laying nearby onto his lap as casually as he can, trying to hide the effect Kenta’s comment is having on him. Kenta gives himself a mental high five, even though he definitely, probably shouldn’t be doing this at all, ever. He turns his gaze toward the bed.

Yongguk is watching him quietly, Freckles still safe and warm in his embrace. He doesn’t look mad anymore. He’s actually kind of smiling a little, that lazy smile that brings a touch of gentle heat to his eyes with it. Kenta smiles back. Maybe this can work. Maybe they can at least all be friends, and not leave it on a bad note. Kenta would definitely prefer that outcome to the one he’d resigned himself to.

He wonders if he’d still be allowed to flirt with Donghan, if they were all just friends.

He wonders if he’d be able to stop.


	3. Karaoke Night

Somewhere around what could either be the two hour, or three and a half drink mark (Kenta isn’t sure yet which he’s using to measure time this evening), Kenta finally turns to Taehyun, yanks him forward by his shirt collar, and hisses as quietly as he can, when he’s sixty-four percent drunk, “So, are you going to tell me why the hell Donghan keeps calling you _Daddy_?”

Taehyun snickers boozily. Next to him, a moderately to very intoxicated Donghan yells, even though he really doesn't need to, from one chair away, “DADDY! GET ME ANOTHER SOJU!” Kenta registers the prominent, dark pink blush on Yongguk’s face just before he takes another shot, himself.

This is all so very strange.

It’s been three weeks since Puppy Day, since that fateful day that the Puppy Gods sent a Frisbee to make friends with Kenta’s forehead, so he and Yongguk could, against all odds, make friends with Donghan. It’s been three weeks, and honestly, Kenta is still sort of astonished at how well it’s going. Somehow, they've managed to bypass the most awkward bits of recovering from Cockgate 2017, and moved smoothly into a comfortable, if not almost too intimate friendship.

Kenta still flirts with Donghan. Yongguk just might flirt with him even more.

They’ve been at the noraebang across the street from Kenta’s office for the last two hours. Everyone’s here. Taehyun is here, and he’s brought his new boyfriend, Hyunbin. Hyunbin seems nice. Kenta wonders how long that’ll last. Sanggyun is here, and Sanggyun is almost never here, so Kenta’s excited.

Sanggyun is always excited. Right now, he’s dancing on top of the table in their private room, the half-full glass in his hand sloshing liquor onto the small audience below as he barrels his way through G-Dragon’s “Crooked” for the second time. If he tries to go for three, maybe someone will attempt to stop him, but it’s unlikely to work. Sanggyun is a force to be reckoned with when he’s _not_ fortified with alcohol.

Anyway. The gang’s all here.

It’s the first time Yongguk and Kenta have hung out with Donghan _and_ Taehyun, both at the same time, and Kenta’s not sure either of them were prepared for it.

Taehyun snickers all the way to the bar, stumbling back a few minutes later with another two bottles of soju for the table, pouring Donghan a glass and settling back into his seat. Kenta’s between Taehyun and Yongguk. Donghan’s on the other side of Taehyun. Kenta wishes he was closer.

If only to prevent himself from thinking about that too much, Kenta leans over to Taehyun again. “Well?” he persists, because honestly, he really, _really_ needs to know, now. Taehyun waves off a surprisingly clingy, pouty Donghan (Kenta makes a mental note: drunk Donghan equals koala Donghan), and gives Kenta as serious a look as he can muster when he’s had nearly an entire bottle of soju by himself, and his new boyfriend is dropping it low with Sanggyun, still on the table above them.

“I don’t think it’s my story to tell, Kenta,” he says finally, and the faraway look in his eyes would be comically dramatic to Kenta, if he didn’t suddenly have the feeling that a whole goddamn steamboat of Sad Backstory™ was about to sail his way. He frowns a little, raising his eyes to look at Donghan. Donghan is already sort of gazing back at him. Sort of, because he’s a bit too wobbly for it to work all the way. It’s still cute as fuck, and Kenta still hates it. Probably.

Donghan gets up, depositing himself in Yongguk’s lap without preamble, and to his credit, Yongguk manages to react in a timely enough manner to at least wrap his arms around Donghan’s waist so he doesn’t fall off. Yongguk’s still blushing. Kenta can understand why.

“It’s okay, Kenta! It’s not that sad!” Donghan yells, fighting to be heard over the music. “Taehyun and I lived next door to each other when we were kids, and Taehyun would babysit me a lot when my mom was out. My dad wasn’t around, and stuff,” he says, just a touch softer. Kenta can’t look away. Donghan is just...captivating.

“Anyway,” Donghan goes on, and Kenta can see Taehyun smiling at him with such sweet, familial fondness that he’s sort of blown away. “My mom died about a year ago, and I didn’t really have anywhere to go, so Taehyun took me in for a while.” Donghan pauses to have another shot of soju, and when he’s got it down his throat, Taehyun pours him a cup of water and puts it in his hand without a word. Donghan gulps it down, and goes on. He’s still yelling, a little, but the music’s decreased in volume.

“It’s not a sex thing, though! The whole Daddy thing. It’s just a joke, I promise! Something we started a long time ago!” Taehyun shushes him gently, and amazingly, Donghan listens. When the story continues, it’s quieter. “He basically saved me. He made sure I went to school, and helped me with money a little, until I could get back on my feet about a month ago. And, it’s totally not his fault I’m a call boy, by the way. I’m just good at it and it’s easy,” Donghan finishes, and he’s actually blushing now, too, looking for all the world like the shy, sweet kid Kenta has gotten to know in the last few weeks. The kid who’s rapidly becoming Kenta’s second favorite person in the whole world.

Yongguk gives Taehyun a disapproving look as Donghan slips off his lap and onto Taehyun’s smoothly. Kenta kind of hopes he’s third in line for that particular privilege. “He lived with you for that long and you didn’t tell any of us, or even introduce us? We could have helped, too, Taehyun,” Yongguk chides gently.

Taehyun shrugs off Yongguk’s questions with a wave of his hand. “It was my thing, Yongguk. My responsibility. Donghan didn’t want to be a burden on too many people. He’s _actually_ not a burden at all.”

Donghan smiles a little dopily, nuzzling Taehyun’s neck. Taehyun starts to blink rapidly, his nose wrinkling and twitching from side to side, and just as he’s descending into a small fit of intense sneezes, Kenta makes the connection.

“Wait. You said you couldn’t have a cat because your _dad_ was allergic,” Kenta cries, pointing an accusatory finger at Donghan. Donghan just giggles. Taehyun tries to giggle, but it’s cut off by aggressive sniffling, and he reaches around Donghan’s waist, pawing blindly for the nearest napkin on the table. Donghan gives him one, still giggling a little in Kenta’s direction.

“Taehyun _is_ basically my dad, Kenta. That’s why I call him Daddy,” Donghan says, hugging Taehyun closer even as Taehyun’s eyes are watering and Kenta is remembering how very allergic to cats Taehyun is and how very covered with cat hair Donghan always is and before he can stop himself, he’s giggling too. Kenta starts to giggle, and then Yongguk starts up too, and then all three of them are cackling like drunken maniacs (which, they totally _are,_ right now), and finally Taehyun stumbles off to the bathroom to pull himself together.

They stay at the noraebang another hour or two, but then Sanggyun has work the next day, and Taehyun is more interested in taking Hyunbin home (read: to Taehyun’s home), and suddenly, before Kenta can really even get used to the idea, he’s alone in the noraebang with Yongguk and Donghan, all three of them are drunk, and he’s pretty damn sure that nothing good, absolutely nothing at all, will come of this.

The silence that fills the air in the wake of all the new absences threatens to push down on Kenta, suddenly, and so he hops out of his chair before it can win, announces, “I’m going to get us another round,” and leaves for the bar before anyone can stop him.

It’s much less silent, outside their private room.

Kenta fights his way through the noise and the crowd over to the bar. He tries to remember which soju Donghan liked best, since he knows both he and Yongguk are well past the point of caring what they pour into their stomachs, but unfortunately he’s also well past the point of being able to recall little tidbits like that one, so he just gets another bottle of the same, plus three waters, and carries it all back to the private room as carefully as he can.

When he pushes the door open again and raises his eyes to the scene inside their room, Kenta discovers that all that care was pretty much for nothing. He barely notices when the bottle and all three glasses slip out of his arms and go crashing to the floor.

Yongguk and Donghan break apart from the heated embrace Kenta’s caught them in almost guiltily at the sound of glass shattering against the tile, Donghan nearly tumbling off Yongguk’s lap before he lands on his feet again, and both of them turn to stare at Kenta like a couple of deer caught in headlights.

Kenta doesn’t know what to say, or what to do. He doesn’t know how to tell them that they don’t have to feel guilty, that he’s wanted this for weeks, too. He doesn’t have the words.

He doesn’t have the words, and so, Kenta hops over the broken glass with a clumsy delicacy that he’d be more proud of if he didn’t have other, much more important things to do, takes the few steps separating him from the other two, and then he shows them how he feels, instead.

*

Kenta is not a morning person.

This is a well documented fact, observed by all who’ve known him longer than five minutes, over and over throughout the course of his life.

Even at his job, which begins at the unholy hour of eight o’clock, all his co-workers know to leave Kenta the fuck alone before his lunch hour. It’s not that he won’t work, and do his job well. He just doesn’t have the ability to talk to anyone while he does it, before that magical midday hour.

Kenta is not a morning person, so he finds it somewhat strange that he wakes up with a smile on his face, the morning after the noraebang. He comes to slowly, squinting against the sunlight filtering into his bedroom through the blinds, and at first, Kenta doesn’t understand why everything feels different, today. He glances to his left, towards Yongguk’s side of the bed. His boyfriend is there, sleeping peacefully, drooling just a little onto his pillow. Nothing unusual there. Then, Kenta turns to his right, and he remembers everything.

He remembers every single thing that happened last night, even through the haze he can feel throbbing in his temples.

He remembers walking back to the private room at the noraebang, and finding Yongguk and Donghan kissing. He remembers their hands everywhere, how it had seemed so desperate and sweet all at once.

He remembers how scared they both were, when they realized Kenta had caught them.

He remembers walking over to their table, to the chair where Yongguk was still sitting, looking stunned, Donghan standing next to him awkwardly, like he wasn’t sure whether he should run or not.

He remembers standing on his tiptoes to kiss Donghan for the first time.

He remembers both of them melting into it, like they’d done it a thousand times before.

He remembers pulling Yongguk up to join them.

Kenta remembers the taxi ride back to their house, the way he was half-sitting, half-laying across both Donghan and Yongguk at the same time as they made out as discreetly as possible, which wasn't very, at the time and in their condition.

He remembers the way that, improbably, unbelievably, it all completely worked. It all felt right.

He remembers getting home, and barely locking the front door before hands were all over him, touching him everywhere and making him burn under his clothes.

He remembers those clothes being gone, without really knowing where they went or who took them off.

He remembers how it felt, all of them together for the first time.

Kenta doesn’t recall the specifics after that, not really. He’s not sure he needs to, when just the vague, fuzzy details make him warm all over again.

He smiles at Donghan, asleep on the right side of this bed he’s only ever shared with Yongguk, overnight. Donghan looks even more handsome in the soft light of morning.

Kenta’s not a morning person. But maybe he could try to be, if mornings were like this, more often.

He rolls back and forth for a while, gazing at Yongguk and gazing at Donghan, one after the other, wondering how he got so lucky. Kenta does that for a while, until he flips over to look at Yongguk again, and Yongguk is staring back at him, eyes wide with nauseated horror. Donghan is still asleep.

“Babe--” Kenta whispers quietly, trying to sound as calm as he possibly can. Yongguk’s eyes get even wider, and then he vaults out of bed, runs to the bathroom and slams the door, and commences throwing up. Loudly.

Kenta sits up after a moment, staring at the closed bathroom door in the hallway just outside the bedroom in dismay. “Fuck,” he mutters, wriggling out of bed and finding the nearest pair of something resembling pants. He has no idea who they belong to. It doesn’t really matter. He gets up, however unwillingly, now, closing the bedroom door as gingerly as possible so Donghan doesn’t have to wake up to the scary movie-esque soundtrack of Yongguk barfing out his hangover and his shame, and slides down onto the floor next to the bathroom door, waiting. It takes a while.

It takes so long, in fact, that Kenta decides to go into the kitchen and try to keep himself busy, filling up four glasses with cold water and lining them up on the table for Yongguk, when he eventually returns from his vomit vacation. He wants to make breakfast, maybe some eggs or some pancakes, but he’s not sure yet if the smell will send Yongguk running back to the bathroom, so he waits. He makes himself a cup of tea and sits at the table, drinking it and staring at the glasses of water until his boyfriend materializes in the doorway.

Kenta studies Yongguk as he falls wearily into his chair across the table, pulling the waters closer one by one and draining them. He doesn’t look _too_ terribly bad, Kenta decides. Slightly green around the gills, maybe, but not a total wreck. Yongguk never handles that much alcohol well. Kenta chastises himself silently for allowing him to get so trashed. He should have paid closer attention.

Yongguk finishes with the fourth glass of water, getting up to fill it again, and then he sits back down and wonders aloud, “What the fuck did we _do_ , Kenta?”

This is the part Kenta has been preparing himself for since Yongguk woke up, and yet somehow, he’s still mostly at a loss for words, beyond the basic facts.

“We all slept together,” he says, trying to keep it as simple as possible, when it seems like the most complicated thing in the world, suddenly.

Yongguk gives him the most annoyed look Kenta thinks he’s probably capable of, when he’s just finished what seemed to be a pretty intense round of barf-o-rama. “Obviously,” he says after raising his glass to his lips and putting it down again without taking a sip. “ _Obviously,_ Kenta.”

This conversation is going nowhere fast, and Kenta has no idea how to save it. He stares at his rapidly cooling cup of tea, trying to figure out where to start. “I don’t think...I don’t think...it’s a bad thing?...” Kenta tries finally, lifting his eyes to Yongguk again. “I mean...I liked it. I liked it a lot,” he adds, watching Yongguk’s face, trying to figure him out.

Trying to figure out when his _own_ ideas about all this changed so much.

Yongguk wipes at his eyes blearily, sighing. “Yeah. I liked it too. It just doesn’t matter,” he says, staring through Kenta, at the wall behind him.

“Of course it matters,” Kenta counters. “It matters. It matters if we were...are...if we’re both happy. If _Donghan_ is happy,” he says firmly, but he doesn’t even get the words all the way out before Yongguk snorts and waves his hand in the air between them, as if he can erase the phrases that way.

“It doesn’t matter. Because we aren’t the only ones he’s, y’know…” Yongguk trails off. He doesn’t want to say it. Kenta decides he’s going to force the issue, right here and now, while Yongguk is grumpy but too tired to put up much of a fight against having the conversation, period.

“Fucking. _Fucking,_ Yongguk. You can say the word. I know you can. We aren’t the only ones he’s _fucking,_ ” Kenta intones, until the word barely means anything anymore, inside his mouth or otherwise. Yongguk looks vaguely ill again, and Kenta could not care less.

“We may not be the only ones he’s fucking, but maybe we’re the only ones he _gives_ a damn about, y’know? The only ones he’s not fucking for his _job._ Doesn’t that mean _anything_ to you?” Kenta questions, aware that his voice is getting more shrill than he’d like it to be. His head hurts. He should probably tone it down, for his own sake.

Yongguk groans, dropping his head into his arms, resting on the table. “I don’t know,” he mutters, the sentences muffled, but Kenta can still make them out. “I don’t know. I just know that he’s beautiful and I hate him. I _fucking_ hate him.”

Kenta doesn’t know whether he should feel victorious or not, that he finally got Yongguk to say it.

He _does_ know that both he and Yongguk hear the groan come from the bedroom, that they both hear the sounds of the bedsprings creaking under Donghan’s weight as he gets up. They both hear the door open and the shuffling of Donghan’s feet coming towards the kitchen, and to Yongguk’s credit and Kenta’s eternal appreciation, Yongguk manages to pick his face up and plaster an almost real smile onto it by the time Donghan makes it into the room, hair a mess from sleep and a shy little grin on his own face. He’s wearing Yongguk’s boxers. He is so cute that Kenta can hardly stand it.

“Morning,” he says with a yawn, running a hand through his hair. “You guys want some breakfast? I could make eggs. That’s pretty much the only thing I never screw up.”

Kenta glances at Yongguk, trying to gauge his current nausea level, and whether or not a hearty helping of scrambled eggs will elevate or lower it. Yongguk is looking up at Donghan, and it’s so affectionate that Kenta’s heart skips several beats, and after a moment Yongguk smiles and answers, “Eggs sound nice.”

Kenta doesn’t know whether or not he means it. But he does know that in this moment, he loves Yongguk more than he ever has before.

Fifteen minutes later, the three of them have eggs together, and Kenta doesn’t quite have it in him to tell Donghan that they’re terribly burnt and really just terrible in general, so he eats them anyway and smiles the whole time, because Donghan tried. Yongguk eats them too, slowly, doused in maple syrup of all things, but Kenta supposes it masks the singed flavor. They eat, and Donghan doesn’t say much but he smiles back at both of them, and Kenta’s face hurts from all the smiling by the time breakfast is over and Donghan gets ready to leave, but honestly, he wouldn’t have it any other way.


	4. Leg Day

In the two months since Kenta and Yongguk and Donghan started dating, all of them together, dating each other (Kenta has to repeat this to himself at least a few times a day, so he’ll believe it’s actually happening), Kenta doesn’t think he’s ever seen Donghan so nervous.

He wasn’t nervous on Yongguk’s birthday, when Yongguk suggested that they all go to brunch with his parents, even though Kenta told him in advance that “brunch”, to Yongguk’s parents, meant at least three different kinds of caviar would be consumed before noon. Donghan wasn’t nervous for that, even when Yongguk introduced him as their boyfriend for the first time, to anyone but their close friends, who already knew without being told.

Donghan wasn’t nervous when Kenta asked him to be his date, along with Yongguk, of course, to the annual employee mixer his office held. That went off without a hitch, once the open bar, well, opened, and Donghan’s sense of humor and natural magnetism came out more and more with every passing minute.

He wasn’t nervous for a great many things that Kenta felt he should have been, and so Kenta is somewhat perplexed when he and his boyfriends (holy shit, his _boyfriends_ ) are standing outside an unfamiliar apartment door, to he and Yongguk at least, and Donghan starts doing jumping jacks.

Every time he raises his arms and jumps, Kenta can see a growing puddle of sweat under each sleeve. He decides not to say anything about it.

Instead, Kenta leans against the doorframe, holds hands with Yongguk as they both watch Donghan go, and asks, “You okay, handsome?”

Anytime Kenta gets the pleasure of being able to call Donghan whichever pet name springs to mind, it gives him a little thrill. And maybe, like, half a boner.

Whatever.

The jumping jacks cease, and Donghan replaces them with jogging in tiny, dizzying circles.

Yongguk gives it a try. “Honey. Talk to us,” he says, trying and failing to reach up and grab Donghan by the shoulders. He just slips out of the attempted grasp and bends over, hands on his knees while he pants out his anxiety. It takes a good minute and a half before he straightens up, face flushed with exertion and eyes wide with trepidation.

“Okay. Like. You know how Taehyun’s my dad?”

 _Your “daddy”,_ Kenta’s brain supplies, while his mouth does better, replying, “Sure. Sure.”

Donghan notices his light, teasing sarcasm, his eyes rolling a little spastically, but he doesn’t mention it. “Well...Jisung’s pretty much my _mom,_ lately,” he says, biting his lip and flicking his eyes from Yongguk to Kenta to the wall and back again.

Donghan has a very strange found family, Kenta feels. He wonders where he and Yongguk fit into it, or if they do at all. Now probably isn’t the best time to consider...all of _that._ He smiles instead, hoping it’s reassuring and not as done with tonight as he’s already starting to feel, since he’s very sure Donghan’s freaking out for no damn reason.

“So, we’re meeting the rest of the family,” Yongguk says, a smirk quirking at the corner of his mouth.

As Donghan’s nodding and mumbling something to the affirmative, his phone buzzes in his pocket and he pulls it out to check who the incoming call is from, silencing it with a small frown after a moment and stuffing it back in his pocket. Kenta tries hard not to ask.

Donghan is still a call boy. Every time Kenta suggests to Yongguk that they should talk about it, all three of them together, like all three of them together are dating each other, Yongguk freezes up and mutters a few unintelligible phrases that Kenta has basically decided to interpret as _much much later for fuck’s sake,_ and so the topic gets dropped.

And Donghan is still a call boy.

It’s fine. Kenta’s fine. Yongguk’s fine.

It’s all fine.

They stand awkwardly outside this alleged Jisung person’s apartment for another minute or two, before Yongguk sighs and puts Donghan out of his misery, knocking on the door politely but firmly. Kenta’s not really nervous. Everyone likes him. Moms _love_ him. This will be no problem at all.

Kenta’s _very_ nervous, actually, but he’s pretty sure only Yongguk can tell, so it’s okay.

A moment later, the door’s flung open rather dramatically by a guy with the kindest smile Kenta thinks he’s ever seen, and a sweet, sonorous voice to match.

“You’re here! You must be Kenta and Yongguk. I’m Jisung. Please, come in,” he says, stepping back to let the three of them into his home. It smells like delicious, delicious pasta and marinara sauce. Jisung is wearing an apron that says “Kiss the Cook”. Kenta never wants to leave.

Jisung tells them to make themselves at home while he finishes dinner, so Kenta leaves his shoes by the door and flops onto the nearest couch. It smells like cinnamon and sugar. Kenta is moving in, tonight.

Yongguk sits next to him, lifting Kenta’s legs onto his lap so he can scoot close, and Donghan takes the last remaining couch space next to Yongguk. Kenta watches him try not to blush too red when Yongguk lets his hand rest on Donghan’s knee and leaves it there, massaging slow, calming circles into his jeans.

Donghan doesn’t stay on the couch long, jumping up when Jisung asks for help in the kitchen, so Kenta and Yongguk curl up together instead and listen to the story of how Jisung became, for all intents and purposes, Donghan’s mom.

They met only a little over a year ago, Jisung tells them as he ties another apron on an oddly patient and willing Donghan and puts him on sauce stirring duty. Donghan’s mother had just passed away, and he was, basically, adrift, in almost every sense of the word. He had a place to stay with Taehyun, but everything else was a mess. Taehyun had helped, Donghan made sure to reiterate, helped with money and keeping him in school, but Kenta is keenly aware that Taehyun generally has all the emotional depth of a...not deep...object--(shut _up,_ Donghan is so cute in that apron that Kenta is far too distracted to think of anything better)--and so, when Donghan wandered into Jisung’s piano shop one rainy day between his engineering classes, Jisung’s natural caretaker instincts took over, and they made fast friends.

Jisung gave Donghan the shoulder he needed to cry on, the food he needed on days he forgot to feed himself, and on top of that, Jisung tells them with a grin over huge bowls of pasta once dinner is served, he gave Donghan some voice lessons. Kenta wonders if there’s anything Jisung _doesn’t_ do. Sings, cooks, comforts, plays piano like a dream...this guy pretty much seems to do it all, with a dazzling smile on his face all the while. Kenta kind of wants Jisung to be _his_ mom, by the time the story’s all told ( _apologies, actual Mom_ ).

Donghan’s nerves seem to have calmed by the time Jisung distributes glasses of wine after dinner, and Kenta is glad. Kenta watches his face light up as he tells some story Kenta is only half-listening to, because he’s wine-happy and a little food-sleepy, now. The conversation lulls as they drink, and Donghan excuses himself to the bathroom when he finishes his glass.

Kenta has no idea where it comes from, or why, but the minute Donghan leaves, he turns to Jisung and blurts, “So, uh, aren’t you mad that Donghan is like, screwing people for a living?”

He might be more tipsy than he allowed for. Maybe.

Kenta thinks he hears Yongguk mutter, “Jesus _Christ_ ” next to him, but the question’s out and Kenta only regrets it about seventeen percent. He really wants to know. Maybe it would help clear up his own feelings about the whole thing, which seem to change almost daily. Sometimes it doesn’t bother him at all. Sometimes he finds it kind of hot, really. Other days, Kenta just seethes with silent, ineffectual jealousy when he thinks of it.

It’s...confusing.

Jisung just chuckles good-naturedly, regarding Kenta with a serene smile. “It used to, I suppose,” he says, and he doesn’t sound like he’s surprised that Kenta asked. “But, Donghan is an adult. It’s his choice. There are worse things he could be.”

Kenta wants to ask what those things are, but he doesn’t want to come off any dumber than he already is, so he just sort of _hrmphs_ and sits back and lets Yongguk pet his hair while he picks up more or less where Kenta left off.

“Excuse him, please. We’re, um...we’re not great at talking things out at appropriate times,” Yongguk tries, and Jisung smiles some more.

“No apology necessary. You’re the first of Donghan’s boyfriends he’s brought home to meet me, for what it’s worth. I think that means something. I think you mean quite a bit to him,” Jisung allows, and Kenta blushes, his face warm against Yongguk’s shirt.

He has a whole lot of follow-up questions to sift through, but just then, Donghan comes back, a regretful little frown on his face.

“Sorry, guys, um...work calls. I mean, I’ve...I’ve been called. For a job. I’m going to have to go,” Donghan stammers out. He’s done this only a handful of times since they started seeing each other. Mostly, he’s done a good job of keeping everything very separate. But each time it’s happened, none of the three of them have gotten any better at handling it.

Yongguk clears his throat. He feels colder already, his arm cool around Kenta instead of comforting, as if Kenta can feel his emotions shutting off through his clothes, that icy exterior he’s so good at affecting seeping from his pores suddenly.

“It’s okay. We should be getting home, anyway,” he says, and Kenta can hear how hard he’s trying to be stoic. He hopes he’s the only one who’s aware of that fact.

They say their goodbyes, and Jisung invites them back for another dinner anytime, and Kenta is about to profess his undying love for Donghan’s surrogate mom, but Donghan is walking away after giving them each a quick kiss and Yongguk is pulling him in the opposite direction, and so, Kenta goes.

*

At five-thirty the next morning, Kenta is seriously starting to regret all his life decisions.

He regrets letting Yongguk stop at a convenience store on the way home the night before and buy another bottle of wine. He _really_ should start paying more attention, to things besides his own temporary misery.

He regrets splitting said bottle with his boyfriend while they both continued to staunchly ignore every last one of their relationship problems.

He regrets forgetting that this is the five-thirty on a Saturday morning they’d promised to Sanggyun, finally, after nearly two years of resistance.

By the time Yongguk throws himself out of bed and army-crawls across the bedroom floor and out of the room, toward the front door, Sanggyun has been leaning on the doorbell for five minutes. Continuously.

Sanggyun really does not know the meaning of the word “restraint”.

Kenta rubs his eyes blearily, checking his phone. 5:34 AM. He’s missed one text from Donghan, at nearly four in the morning. It’s just a simple heart, the goodnight text they’ve all taken to sending each other at the end of every day. Kenta swallows thickly and decides the lump in his throat is just dehydration and absolutely nothing else.

He’s stumbling out of bed, trying to feel his way to the kitchen for a glass of water, when he runs straight into the brick shithouse otherwise known as Kim Sanggyun.

“Hey, man! Top o’ the mornin’ to ya! Up and at ‘em, it’s Leg Day!!” Sanggyun exclaims, way too loudly, clapping Kenta on the back and charging past him to the fridge Kenta was in search of. Sanggyun throws the door open and grabs their carton of orange juice, drinking it straight, without even bothering to pour it into a glass.

Kenta narrows his eyes. _Heathen._

He whips around too fast, looking for Yongguk in the dark, and then Kenta has to give up, holding his aching, hungover forehead in both hands and cursing his boyfriend’s ex-roommate/de facto best friend for his very existence until Yongguk crawls back over to him from where he's just shut the front door and wraps his arms around Kenta’s legs, using them to lift himself onto the couch. They both collapse onto it, watching in mute horror as Sanggyun drains the last of their orange juice and slams the carton into the counter like he’s Hulk fucking Hogan or some shit.

“Are you guys hungover or something?” Sanggyun questions next, chortling. Kenta ponders the most succinct yet polite way to tell him that his natural volume is way, way too much at the moment. “Shit. That’s beautiful. Perfect way to approach Leg Day with Sanggyun’s Sweat & Soju.”

Yongguk groans, burying his nose in Kenta’s neck. “Why are you like this,” he says, and it’s not a question.

Sanggyun grins broadly in the light of the open refrigerator. “Just lucky, I guess,” he replies, and then he goes outside to do laps around the house while Kenta and Yongguk get dressed.

*

Half an hour later, they’re at a deserted park nearby, and Sanggyun is leading Kenta and Yongguk through warm-ups, babbling all the while.

“I think this idea is the one, guys. Sanggyun’s Sweat & Soju, I mean. Working out and drinking at the same time. _Genius._ Drinking equals sweating. Sweating is great for you. Really helps the pounds just fall off,” Sanggyun says, tipping the bottle of soju in his hand into his mouth again. He gave both Kenta and Yongguk their own bottle when they arrived. Neither of them have even attempted to open them yet. Kenta feels nauseous just thinking about it.

He wonders why either he or Yongguk, being the weaklings they absolutely are, at the moment and in general, even agreed to allow Sanggyun to help them “get ripped”. Kenta vaguely remembers that the concept of Donghan seeing him naked on a regular basis had something to do with Yongguk's decision.

They’re meant to be doing sit-ups, at the moment, but Kenta is curled up in the fetal position on the damp grass and Yongguk is laying perfectly still on his back, staring daggers up into Sanggyun. He doesn’t notice for a good few minutes, while he’s on his rant, but then finally Sanggyun looks down, frowning.

“You guys aren’t even trying. Beach season is coming! You gotta be ready!” Sanggyun hollers, scaring the only other person within a square mile, a lady having a morning jog and walking her dog.

“Fuck beach season,” Yongguk grumbles, spread-eagled on the ground. “I feel like a beached whale.”

Sanggyun chuckles, sitting down. “What did you guys _do_ last night? You both look like shit,” he says, and he’s quiet enough now that Kenta doesn’t complain.

Yongguk sits up slowly, very slowly, a pained expression on his face. “Nothing you and I didn’t do routinely in college,” he replies, “Except that now I’m too old to handle it. At all.”

Sanggyun scoffs. “You graduated, like, last year. The fuck.”

“Yes,” Yongguk agrees. “And thanks to you, I feel like I’ve aged a decade in the last hour.”

Sanggyun pops up again and looms over Yongguk, grabbing one of his legs and working it up and down. Yongguk doesn’t even try to protest. Kenta might try to take a nap while Sanggyun’s distracted.

“Man, talk to me, buddy. What’s going on? Something’s up, I can feel it. I have a sense for these things,” Sanggyun reports.

He doesn’t.

Yongguk sighs, pawing at his tired eyes uselessly. “There’s not a lot to talk about.”

Kenta groans. “Yeah, that’s the problem. Yongguk never wants to talk about it,” he snarks, and he kind of regrets it, but not enough to take it back.

“Ugh,” Yongguk answers. “Shut up, Kenta. This isn’t the time.”

Kenta sits up, glaring at his boyfriend. “Then when _will_ it be the time, huh? When? Hopefully soon, before this all falls apart,” he threatens idly. He thinks it sounds threatening, anyway, and he’s happy with that thought.

Yongguk nearly kicks Sanggyun trying to sit up too, but Sanggyun has quick enough reflexes to roll to the side and lay himself on the grass again, to watch the impending shitshow unfolding right in front of his eyes.

“Before _what_ falls apart, Kenta? Which part? The Donghan part, or the you and me part?” Yongguk snaps, and Kenta is officially fed the fuck up.

“I don’t know, Yongguk,” he snaps back with a surprising amount of bitterness for his current addled state. “I guess that’ll be up to you.”

The words sit between them uncomfortably. No one says anything. Sanggyun is pretending to do something on his phone, now. Yongguk and Kenta are still glaring at each other. Kenta wonders if this is what it feels like, something starting to crack. He knows it started to crack a while ago. But now, he’s _letting_ himself feel it, and it _sucks._

Finally, Sanggyun tosses his phone to the ground. “Jesus, I feel like I’m watching my parents fight. You guys are insane.”

Kenta feels like maybe he should say something else, something to make all the other things he said just a little less...true. But, Sanggyun is moving swiftly along, as usual.

“Guk. Bro. I love you. But you are being a dick to the person you’ve been in love with since you were sixteen and I need you to stop,” he orders, and Kenta watches Yongguk blush a little. He still looks pissed, but it's muted just slightly.

Kenta tries to make himself soften. He’s always soft for Yongguk, truthfully, but he also hates losing an argument, especially one he more or less started. It takes a while to work, so while he’s waiting, Kenta keeps watching Yongguk while he and Sanggyun talk at each other.

“I don’t know what else to do, Sanggyun. I don’t know how to do this, with Donghan. It’s harder than I thought it would be, and I don't know if it's my fault for being so fucking unable to like...express myself. Or whatever. It just...it feels like he’s pulling away from us little by little. Like he’s there, for a while, but then he’s just…”

“Not,” Kenta finishes for Yongguk. “He’s not there, not all the way. It’s our fault, I guess, for not talking about it. The whole...thing…” he trails off. He feels so lost, suddenly.

“The thing about his job,” Sanggyun clarifies, and Kenta and Yongguk nod in unison.

Sanggyun thinks for a moment. “What about the bigger thing?” he asks, and Kenta raises an eyebrow, motioning for Sanggyun to go on.

Sanggyun tries to laugh, but he doesn’t quite get there. He just rubs at the back of his neck and stares up at the sky, still thinking hard as he answers.

“I mean, the thing where he’s not used to having _people_ in a romantic way,” Sanggyun starts, his tone oddly hesitant, as if he hasn’t quite sorted through all the sentences, hasn’t put them in their right places yet, but he’s saying them anyway.

Kenta watches Yongguk watch Sanggyun. He can see Yongguk’s jaw twitching, which only ever happens when he’s angry or sad. Kenta supposes he’s probably both, at the moment, with a healthy dose of exhaustion mixed in and a headache to top it all off.

He tunes back into Sanggyun’s rambling just in time. “The thing where his life has been kind of a mess for kind of a while, and first he had to learn to take care of himself, and then he had to learn how to rely on exactly two other people when he figured out he was _bad_ at taking care of himself,” Sanggyun’s saying now, twirling a blade of grass between his fingers idly as he talks. Kenta wonders if maybe he could have just a little soju. Just a sip, to take the edge off. He wonders if it would go down all right, or if it would make everything about this exponentially worse.

“Maybe he’s not pulling away because his heart’s not in it,” Sanggyun murmurs, and he’s speaking faster now, growing more sure of what he’s saying. “Maybe he’s just scared because for the first time, it _is._ In it, I mean. For you guys,” he finishes, and then Sanggyun finishes his first bottle of soju while Kenta and Yongguk stare at him in complete confusion and at least partial amazement.

Kenta has no idea when Sanggyun caught up on their whole saga, and he guesses it doesn't really matter. Taehyun has a big, gossipy mouth. He probably blabbed the whole story at some point, when Kenta wasn’t paying attention.

Sanggyun rolls his eyes when he catches them. “Don’t look at me like that, dudes. I’m not a total hack, all right? I know what I’m talking about sometimes.”

Yongguk looks like he wants to argue that point. Sanggyun doesn’t give him the opportunity.

“And, and...I know that if you don’t figure this out, it’s gonna tear you apart, I mean _the two of you,_ Kenta and Yongguk. The Kenta and Yongguk I’ve known for years as a solid duo,” Sanggyun emphasizes with a swig off his new bottle, “and I don’t want to have to get to know you all over again separately, all right? I’ve got shit to do. This business ain’t gonna run itself,” Sanggyun says, and then he nods with satisfaction, getting to his feet again.

Yongguk and Kenta are still a little stunned. Yongguk glances at Kenta. Kenta glances back, then they both look away.

“I’m sorry,” Yongguk whispers after a moment. He sounds sad. Kenta hates it. He sighs, nodding.

“Me too,” he answers, trying to give Yongguk a smile. He hopes it works. He hopes they can make all of this work.

Yongguk squeezes Kenta’s hand, and then they look up together, at Sanggyun, who’s jogged his way across the park and is trying to sell an unsuspecting power walker on the dubious virtues of Sanggyun’s Sweat & Soju.

Kenta watches Sanggyun demonstrate his physical prowess by parkouring rather poorly off a nearby tree. He even manages a tired laugh when the unconvinced party steps over Sanggyun, lying on the ground clutching his newly-injured shin and wincing, and power walks away.

Leg Day, indeed.


	5. Brunch

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Warning: beyond here lies angst.
> 
>  
> 
> This chapter would not have been anywhere near as good without the help of my friend, bagelswrites. <3

Brunch is Kenta’s favorite meal.

Breakfast _would_ be his favorite meal, except he’s still not much of a morning person. Lunch is a good meal, but it lacks _breakfast_ food. But brunch? Brunch is their beautiful, waffle-y baby, and today Kenta is eating brunch with Yongguk and Donghan, and the way they’re both smiling and happy and laughing with each other while Kenta works on his fourth waffle is only reinforcing his firmly held beliefs on the whole thing.

It’s the day after Donghan’s birthday, and they’d spent the night before with their friends at some club Taehyun and Sanggyun knew about. Yongguk’s never been a club person, and Kenta has sort of forgotten how he used to be one, but they agreed to go anyway, because Donghan had seemed so excited about it, and it was his birthday.

And also, it was _Donghan._

Kenta thinks about it all, while he munches that fourth waffle.

It’s been almost six months since they first met Donghan, in the strangest way possible. Kenta had really thought they’d never see him again after The Incident, and he’d tried hard to be all right with that. Yongguk had tried hard, too, but Kenta could see right through it.

Then there was Puppy Day.

And everything that followed.

There wasn’t any real official-ness to them dating. No one asked for, or offered, their services as boyfriend. It was just something they sort of fell into, and then all three of them kept sort of falling into it.

It’s been nice.

For something that’s been happening for six months in a row, it’s still alarmingly casual, Kenta feels. But, he figures it’ll all get worked out in it’s own time.

Things are better between he and Yongguk, too. Probably. They haven’t really talked about it any further, but they’re still together, so there’s that. Maybe that’s enough, for a while.

Yongguk seems especially content today, Kenta notices with satisfaction as he glances over at his boyfriend, eating his eggs benedict at the little round table they’re all occupying together, outside the cafe. Kenta watches Donghan and Yongguk flirt with each other, which has kind of become his favorite activity to observe, really. Yongguk doesn’t open up easily, ever, but when he’s around Donghan, it’s like he was never closed off to begin with. Kenta would envy how naturally their companionship comes, if he didn’t feel it with both of his boyfriends, as well.

Donghan chuckles at whatever Yongguk’s just said (Kenta was too busy being swoony to listen all that well) and straightens up in his chair, buttering himself a third piece of toast, and he looks like he’s just about to say something else, when a new voice interjects itself into their little bubble and bursts it before Kenta can properly react.

“Hey, sexy.”

Something about the voice is off, before Kenta even sees the source of it. The tone is too warm, too familiar. Too intimate. Too _close,_ even though it’s coming from a respectable distance away.

Kenta frowns. And he looks.

The man standing next to their table eyeing Donghan seems nice enough, on first glance. Just a normal guy, really, but maybe a bit old to be addressing Donghan the way he is.

Yongguk is watching Donghan, so Kenta watches too.

He watches as Donghan’s face changes from real, honest-to-goodness happiness, the open, peaceful happiness he’s grown used to seeing from Donghan since they’ve all been together, to something else entirely.

If he wasn’t so well-acquainted with Donghan by now, Kenta might have missed the important tells Donghan has.

But he is. And he doesn’t.

Kenta knows the look on Donghan’s face. It’s the same look he gave them the first night they met, when Yongguk and Kenta walked into their living room and found Donghan, naked on their couch. Waiting.

Waiting to do his job.

Kenta knows, without being told.

This man is one of Donghan’s clients.

And Donghan is doing his job, now.

“Hey,” he replies, pulling a lazy half-smile onto his face, dropping his piece of toast and wiping his hands before he rises from his chair. Kenta scoots his own chair closer to Yongguk, so they’ll present a more united front, maybe. Or, just because.

They both watch as Donghan gives the man a hug. It’s not a quick, one-armed, polite hug. It’s a full-on, bodies-pressed-against-each-other hug, and it makes Kenta feel so unsettled that he has to look away, at Yongguk. Yongguk is concentrating on pouring cream and sugar into his coffee, neither of which he usually takes. Kenta watches the milk cloud the dark brown liquid, trying to make himself not care about anything happening above them.

He’s not watching anymore, but somehow Kenta can still see everything that’s going on. He sees the way the man’s hand remains on Donghan’s waist even after the hug ends. He sees the way Donghan keeps leaning into him the slightest bit, even though he doesn’t need to, anymore.

“I haven’t seen you in a while,” the man continues. “You must be a busy guy.” He aims that comment somewhere toward Kenta and Yongguk, and Kenta is about to say something, to say that yes, Donghan _is_ busy, actually, busy having an real relationship with people who aren’t paying him, when the man asks who Donghan’s “friends” are, and Donghan answers.

“They’re, um...y’know. Just. Just more clients. I’ve definitely been keeping busy,” he says with a salacious wink, and now Kenta has gone past unsettled into just plain _sick._ He barely feels it when Yongguk grabs his hand and grips it tight, way too tight. Yongguk’s palms are sweaty. Kenta has no idea what to do. He wants to go back to ten minutes ago, when he had waffles and his boyfriends and happiness.

Now, he has only one of those things, and Kenta can feel him falling apart right next to him.

He doesn’t listen to most of the rest of Donghan’s conversation. Kenta hears the parts where Donghan promises to see the man soon, the parts where he outright lies about where he was when he’s missed calls for jobs (Kenta knows he’s lying, because almost all of the instances that get brought up, Donghan was with them). He doesn’t listen to most of what’s being said, because Kenta is too busy noticing all the little, tiny details he’s maybe been ignoring, until now.

He recognizes the changes in Donghan’s voice, from intimate to friendly to business. They’re the same changes as when he’s with Yongguk and Kenta. He recognizes the body language, and it should be different, it should all be different, but it isn’t. Donghan is acting the same as he always does, and that’s when Kenta gets it.

They’re still a job.

They may not be paying for Donghan’s services, he may be giving them freebies because on some level, he cares for them, but on many, more _important_ levels, he doesn’t care enough.

After an uncomfortable few minutes, the man leaves, and Donghan sits back down, laying into his buttered toast again like nothing’s wrong. Kenta feels his jaw drop. He feels absolutely indignant, actually, but he doesn’t quite know where to begin.

He chances a peek in Yongguk’s direction, or, more accurately, in the direction of Yongguk’s lap, because he doesn’t feel like meeting his eyes, yet. He’s afraid of what he might see.

What he sees when he looks over is Yongguk’s paper napkin, torn to shreds across his knees, and Yongguk’s fist, the one on the hand not gripping Kenta’s, balled up next to what’s left of the napkin. It all seems very metaphorical, suddenly. The napkin is their relationship. Yongguk’s fist is Donghan, closed off and separate from everything.

He’s trying to think of something to say, _anything_ to say, because Donghan is just sipping his iced latte, looking unconcerned, and it seems entirely unfair to Kenta, when Yongguk beats him to it.

“Just more _clients_ , huh.”

Yongguk mutters the words so quietly that at first, Kenta’s positive he heard wrong. Yongguk is _not_ the type to start shit, not in public.

Well, Donghan _started_ it, he supposes. Maybe Yongguk just wants to finish it.

The thought makes Kenta’s head hurt.

“Hmm?” Donghan half-responds, but he’s more focused on what’s left of brunch.

Yongguk gets louder. “Is that what we are to you, Donghan? Just _clients_??”

Donghan looks up now, a croissant halfway to his mouth. Kenta feels like crying and laughing all at once.

“No!” Donghan exclaims quickly. Too quickly. He drops the croissant onto his plate and waves a hand dismissively. He isn’t meeting either of their stares. He’s glancing at the menu by the cafe door, at the fountain behind them, at anything he can find that isn’t Yongguk or Kenta.

“No,” he says again, steadier. Donghan picks at a string on his jeans as he talks. “It’s just business, y’know? I can’t, like, _tell_ my customers. About. Whatever. I wouldn’t get any jobs,” Donghan shrugs. One part of this makes sense to Kenta. Donghan probably _shouldn’t_ tell his customers about his personal relationships. Another, bigger part of it is nagging at him.

“‘Whatever’,” Kenta repeats, just to make sure he understands. “Is that what this is? Whatever?”

Clearing his throat, Donghan sighs a little too patronizingly for Kenta’s rapidly fraying nerves to accept, before he goes on. “I mean, it’s...I’m the whole package, y’know? I’m not just there for the sex, with my clients. I offer the full ‘boyfriend’ experience. I’d definitely lose business if I told any of them I had other ‘boyfriends’.”

“Wait,” Kenta says immediately, without giving himself a chance to change his mind about it. “Are we boyfriends, or _‘boyfriends’,_ in this scenario?”

Donghan finally glances up, just for a second. Just long enough for Kenta to see the guarded fear in his gaze. He sighs again, loudly, almost petulantly, tossing his own napkin onto the table.

“We’re just having fun, Kenta. What do you want from me?”

Kenta should have known. He _did_ know, if he’s honest with himself. But it still hurts to hear.

“You. We want _you,_ Donghan.”

It isn’t Kenta’s voice. But they’re his thoughts.

“That’s why we’re dating you.” Yongguk looks so, so tired. “We want you. Because we _like_ you. Because we have _feelings_ for you. A lot of them, actually. Maybe we’re the only ones...” He takes a deep breath and a quick glance at Kenta, like he’s bracing for something. “Maybe _I’m_ the only one. But I wasn’t just _having fun_. I was falling...falling for....” he trails off, pressing his lips together like he’s trying to stop any more words from coming out, shaking his head a little.

Kenta bites his lip. Yongguk’s never admitted that part before, not so straightforwardly.  As straightforwardly as Yongguk ever admits anything, anyway. Kenta’s just been assuming that…well, he’s not sure _what_ he’s been assuming, since he’s been working so hard to ignore the most confusing parts of this.  But, Yongguk is always softer than Kenta prepares himself for. It’s one of the things he loves most about him.

Donghan rolls his eyes yet again. Kenta hopes they roll right out of his head, next time. Maybe that would jar him back to reality.

“Well, that wasn’t part of the deal,” Donghan says, and Kenta wonders how he can legitimately say those words, can legitimately convince himself he _feels_ them, after everything they’ve shared. After birthday parties and countless dates and countless un-dates, just spending time at home on the couch watching movies. After all the fucking, and the making love. At least, Kenta _thought_ it was making love. He thought a lot of things. He’s not sure anymore how many of them were actually true.

Yongguk finally snaps the rest of the way, slamming his fist into the table abruptly. The silverware next to him clinks together. Donghan’s nearly-empty latte falls over. Kenta is strangely satisfied, watching it roll around sideways, leaking just a little.

“Fucking _yes, it was,_ Donghan,” Yongguk hisses. He doesn’t seem too very soft at the moment, Kenta notes. “It _was_ part of the deal. Don’t fucking lie to me again, like you lied to your _client_ about where you were, when you were with us. I know you better than that. I’ve seen enough of you to know you felt things, too. Why are you denying it?” By the time Yongguk finishes half-yelling at Donghan, he’s breathing hard and fast, and nearly shaking. Kenta tries to reach up and put an arm around his waist, to be comforting, or something. Yongguk shoves him off with a curt, “Don’t.”

Kenta doesn’t try again.

Donghan crosses his arms over his chest, leaning back in his chair. It’s nonchalant, almost apathetic, and it really, _really_ pisses Kenta off.

“Stop!” Kenta cries, leaning over the table now. He wants to touch Donghan so badly, wants to know if maybe it would shock some sense into him. “Stop acting like you don’t give a shit about this, about us! You aren’t fooling us, Donghan.” Kenta says the sentences in basically one breath, and then he has to stop, gulping air into his lungs so fast that it makes him dizzy. But even that can’t distract him from the fact that Yongguk flinches every time he uses the word _us_.

“Just...just stop this. Please. Don’t do this.” Kenta can hear every crack in his own voice, can feel them somewhere in his chest. He hates that he’s almost begging. He hates that he’s not even sure _who_ he’s begging, Donghan, or Yongguk.

When Donghan speaks next, it sounds thicker, thick like there’s actual emotion behind the words, and Kenta looks up hopefully.

Donghan’s eyes are even colder than they were before. He may be a good actor, but acting only goes so far. It’s not quite extending to his vocal cords, at the moment.

“I don’t think we should do this anymore,” Donghan says, and Yongguk scoffs out a quiet _fuck you._ “I don’t think we should do this anymore,” he says again, “because clearly, we were on different pages. I thought we were just hanging out and fucking.”

The finality of the words, of his tone, hit Kenta square in the face. So _this_ is why he’d been avoiding this conversation. Somewhere deep down, he’d known where it would lead. Kenta lets himself cry for exactly seven seconds, until Donghan comes up with more bullshit to say.

“I’m sorry that Taehyun got you into this, Kenta,” he tries, but Kenta isn’t having it.

“No. Absolutely not. This, right now, is _not_ Taehyun’s fault. Take responsibility for your shitty actions, Donghan,” Kenta bites out through his sniffles. He hopes it sounds as devastating as he means it to.

Donghan doesn’t look devastated. He doesn’t look like he feels anything at all. He gets to his feet, shoving his hands in his pockets and clearing his throat before he says one last thing.

“Thanks for brunch.”

Then he’s gone.

*

Kenta barely remembers the taxi ride home, but now that he’s here, he would rather be anywhere else.

“This is _your fault,_ Kenta. _You_ did this to us. You couldn’t keep your mouth shut about our private business, and it’s because of _you_ that Taehyun thought it would be a good idea to involve Donghan,” Yongguk rants, pacing around the bedroom.

Kenta gets it, now. All of it. He understands exactly what’s happened to him, and to Yongguk, and it doesn’t really matter if Donghan has been doing it intentionally or not, because it’s done. The damage to Kenta’s relationship with Yongguk, that started before they even met Donghan, is done. Donghan’s not to blame for all of it. Kenta knows that. But he could maybe pass off a little of the responsibility, he thinks. Enough to make him feel less stupid about everything.

He and Yongguk have spent nearly four years together, and it started to go south about a year ago.

A year ago is when Yongguk graduated from university and joined Kenta in the workforce. Granted, Kenta’s job is the most basic of administrative positions, he spends his days doing data entry and filing, mostly, but _anyway._ A year ago, Yongguk graduated and began working what should have been his dream job, at an architecture firm. He’d been so excited, at first. Kenta was excited _for_ him. But as the weeks and months dragged on, that excitement faded. Yongguk’s job was _hard._ The hours were long, and they got longer and longer, until he and Kenta barely saw each other except on the weekend, sometimes, and Yongguk just wanted to sleep those days away.

The hours were long, and Yongguk was tired, but this was the career he’d wanted, so he kept on. He kept pushing himself, and in the process, he pushed Kenta away. When they _did_ see each other, he was always cranky, and grouchy, and Kenta wondered if maybe they weren’t too young to be having all these serious, adult relationship problems.

But, Kenta isn’t totally innocent, here. He knows that, even if he’s loath to bring it up most of the time.

The more Yongguk pushed, the less Kenta tried to pull him back. After a while, Kenta just made himself unavailable most weekends, sometimes even disappearing entirely.

It’s sort of funny, honestly, that he never met Donghan, with how many nights he crashed on Taehyun’s couch, just because he didn’t want to be at home.

Every couple months, there was an apocalyptic fight. Every couple months, they slapped a new band-aid on their relationship, but Kenta knows it never really healed.

He wonders if Donghan was meant to be another band-aid, without Kenta even realizing it, but instead, he just opened all their wounds up more.

Kenta doesn’t play his turn in Yongguk’s blame game. He’s too numb.

“I said I was sorry, y’know. For how I acted when I started my job. I thought we’d moved on from that,” Yongguk continues.

Kenta stares at him. “We did,” he replies.

Yongguk throws his hands up, “Well, then why the _fuck_ \--”

“And then you started doing it again,” Kenta finishes, as calmly as he can. Yongguk comes to a stop in the middle of the room, blinking at Kenta. He doesn’t know what to say. Kenta’s glad.

“Fucking, _whatever,_ Kenta. _Whatever._ It didn’t have to come to this. We could have worked our shit out on our own, we could have _talked_ about it--”

Kenta jumps off the bed indignantly. “When? When, Yongguk?? On all the nights when you came home at one, two in the morning from work? On the mornings when you left at five AM?”

Yongguk sighs. “On the weekends…”

Kenta snorts, picking up where he trailed off. “On the weekends, when you would sleep in thirteen hour stretches and then stare at the TV for an hour before you went back to bed?”

Yongguk doesn’t answer.

“I supported you, when this started, Yongguk. I wanted to be a good, supportive boyfriend, so I smiled and agreed to your _insane_ schedule until it started to break us down, and--”

Yongguk groans, sinking onto the end of the bed with his head in his hands. Kenta flops back down, too, facing away from him. Staring at the wall.

“Donghan scares the shit out of me,” Yongguk mutters after a while, so quiet that Kenta barely catches it.

Kenta sighs. “Why,” he says flatly, because he doesn’t want it to be a question. He doesn’t want to hear the answer.

“Because…” Yongguk starts, and then he stops, chuckling humorlessly. “Because, when you started leaving...all those weekends when you left because I left you all week...I thought maybe...maybe you were…and then when you said we had a date, and it had been so long since there was...anybody...I thought maybe you didn’t...you didn’t want just…”

Kenta is too emotionally exhausted to yell at Yongguk for thinking something so absolutely outrageous. “You thought I was cheating on you. And you thought that when I suggested we go out with someone, it was me trying to find someone else.”

“I guess,” Yongguk says softly, and he already sounds like he regrets it.

“Why didn’t you tell me you had feelings for Donghan?” Kenta asks finally, fully aware that Yongguk might not even answer him.

He doesn’t answer, not for a long while.

“I was already losing you. I could feel it. Whether you were leaving me for him or not, you were leaving. I was afraid.”

“That wasn’t--” Kenta stops himself. Yongguk isn’t being rational anymore, but then again, Kenta’s half-attempt at a rebuttal isn't ringing exactly true, either. He tries to stare through the wall. “Anyway, that’s not what I asked.”

Yongguk sighs. “What kind of masochist falls in love with the guy his boyfriend is leaving him for? Falling for him--for all of us together--just to have it all fall apart?” He shrugs helplessly. “You’d end up with Donghan, and I’d end up alone. I figured it was better to push the feelings away.”

“You’re really good at pushing things away,” Kenta mutters. It’s petty, and not at all what he wanted to say, but he can’t help it.

“I didn’t have to push that hard,” Yongguk mutters, and Kenta knows from the hitch in his voice that it’s the last thing he wanted to say, too. The last thing he _will_ say.

There’s a long pause while Kenta scrambles for anything that’ll reverse this day, some sort of magical deus ex machina that will send him back in time an hour or two, to when he had waffles and his boyfriends and happiness. He’s still scrambling when Yongguk speaks again.

“It’s too late, isn’t it? For us? It was too late before Donghan.”

Kenta doesn’t answer. He sits on their bed one last time, memorizing this house and how everything smells and feels. He does that for a while, and Yongguk doesn’t try to add anything else.

Finally, Kenta gets up. He knows Yongguk isn’t following him as he leaves the bedroom and heads for the front door.

“I’ll be back for my stuff later,” he says when he gets there, just loud enough.

And he leaves.

And they all end up alone, after all.


	6. Pizza

It’s the first sunny day in a month, and Kenta finds the irony of that too rich to ignore. It’s rained every single day since he and Yongguk broke up, without fail. Sometimes just a drizzle. Sometimes an all-out thunderstorm. The weather seems to be following Kenta’s emotions. He’s probably some sort of warlock, secretly. So secretly that even he doesn’t know how to use his magical powers for anything but making unending puddles on Taehyun’s doorstep.

Kenta’s been staying here for a month, too. After he’d left, after he and Yongguk had the argument that turned out to be the last one they’d ever have, he came straight here. Taehyun took him in without asking any questions, and the only thing Kenta asked of _him_ was that he never, _ever_ have to see Donghan.

And he hasn’t.

Sometimes, Kenta wants to ask where Donghan is, why he’s not visiting Taehyun anymore, if it’s because of him. If he’s okay. He just doesn’t want to spill that particular can of worms out. He’s not ready yet. Maybe he never will be.

He’s seen Yongguk, more than a few times. Kenta never officially went back over for his stuff, like he’d said he would just before he left, so Yongguk’s been bringing over the essentials in infrequent, short bursts. He brought Kenta his stuffed animal collection, and his worn copies of his favorite video games.

Y’know. The essentials.

They didn’t talk, the first time or two Yongguk showed up. They could barely look at each other, actually. Yongguk brought Kenta’s things in giant bags and put them on Taehyun’s porch and tried to leave as fast as he could. But sometimes, Kenta opened the front door before he could make a clean getaway.

The fourth time Yongguk showed up, with a few framed pictures and photo albums they’d kept during their relationship, Kenta got to the door while he was still setting the bags down, carefully this time. He’d kind of thrown the stuffed animals at Taehyun’s apartment, but, Kenta noticed as he watched Yongguk through the peephole, he was gentler with these mementos. They still meant something to him. And so, Kenta opened the door, and they began piecing their friendship back together, at the very least.

Somewhere, buried deep inside, Kenta still hopes they can work the rest of it out, too.

He feels like it’s that hope that’s brought the sun out today. It’s the first day of sun, and it’s the first day that Kenta’s woken up on Taehyun’s couch _not_ feeling like he got run over by a truck full of his own emotional baggage, in his dreams. He feels good, really. It’s Saturday, and he’s got a whole, long day of nothing planned out, so Kenta lets it start slowly, lets the freedom of the lazy weekend stretch over him as he stretches his limbs out on the sofa. He can smell coffee, and what could be pancakes. Hyunbin’s probably cooking. Taehyun isn’t allowed anywhere near the utensils in his own kitchen. Not after the onion incident.

Kenta hopes there’ll be pancakes. Hyunbin makes great pancakes, and Kenta swore off waffles after the Brunch That Shall Not Be Named, so he’s been making do with the next best thing. He peeks his head up over the back of the couch, and sure enough, Taehyun’s boyfriend is flipping perfectly golden pancake after pancake in a pan at the stove, still wearing his pajamas, and Taehyun is sitting at the table, pretending like he’s not gazing lovingly at Hyunbin and drinking his coffee. He glances over at Kenta after a moment, grinning. “Morning, sunshine.”

Kenta yawns and rolls off the couch, shuffling into the kitchen to sit at the table next to Taehyun. He hasn’t even been there thirty seconds when Hyunbin twirls over a little clumsily and places Kenta’s first cup of tea in front of him without a word, giving him a wink and twirling right back over to the stove. Hyunbin is the first of Taehyun’s boyfriends who’s stuck around longer than a month or two, and Kenta feels strongly that Taehyun couldn’t have picked a better time to stay still, in a relationship. He hopes to hell it lasts, between them. He’s not sure what would happen if he lost his pancake dealer. It wouldn’t be pretty, he knows that much.

After breakfast, after Kenta consumes his weight in fluffy, fluffy pancakes and waddles back over to the couch, Hyunbin picks a movie and Kenta drifts in and out of a series of short naps while it plays, Taehyun and Hyunbin curled up together on the other couch while Kenta continues to monopolize his favorite piece of furniture in this house. He’s just coming out of his ninth nap, give or take, and it’s got to be well into the afternoon, when Hyunbin smiles and asks, “How are you, Kenta? How are things going with Yongguk?”

Kenta shrugs. “Fine, I guess. I mean, we’re not actively screaming at each other every time we end up in the same room, anymore,” he says, even though that’s a little dramatic for the reality of the situation. Yongguk seems to have gotten all the screaming he wanted to do for the rest of his life out of his system during that two hour stretch after they returned from brunch, the day they broke up, and Kenta, as melodramatic as he can be, doesn’t particularly enjoy raising his voice in anger. He’s glad he hasn’t had to do it in a while. It’s refreshing.

Taehyun squeezes Hyunbin’s waist, glancing over at Kenta. “Do you think you can work it out, man?”

Kenta bites his lip, brow furrowed. That’s a big question. There’s hanging out, working on how to be friends again, and then there’s...all of _that._

“I don't know,” he says finally. “Maybe being friends is enough.” He feels sleepy again, like he could take another few naps and just avoid everything, and Kenta closes his eyes drowsily, trying to ignore the nagging feeling this conversation is bringing, the way the words and thoughts are tugging at his sappy little heartstrings. He doesn’t need that in his life right now.

Kenta’s eyes are still closed when Hyunbin speaks up again. “Maybe. But maybe there’s more to it,” he says thoughtfully, and Kenta manages to crack one eyelid open and direct his stare towards the other couch.

“Eh?” he grunts. It’s not a particularly intelligent response, but everything that happened between he and Yongguk and he and Donghan and he and Yongguk and Donghan together...still makes him feel a little stupid, to be honest.

Hyunbin contemplates his next words, tongue poked out between his lips. Taehyun looks more moony-eyed than Kenta has ever seen him. He’s torn between thinking it’s great, what’s happening between them and how well it’s going, and that it’s also completely gross and frankly just rude, considering Kenta’s current situation. It’s probably both. Definitely.

“I mean, maybe it’s not just that the two of you need to work things out. Maybe it’s...the three of--”

“ _Nope,_ ” Kenta says, more forcefully than he intended. “Not. Not that. Not ever that. Not fucking today, Satan,” he declares, and then Kenta rolls over on the couch, so Hyubin and Taehyun can’t see the way he’s blushing and thinking about Donghan and Yongguk and he and Donghan and Yongguk together, and stubbornly takes another nap, or five.

*

When Kenta wakes up again, the light pouring in the large windows of Taehyun’s house has moved, and dimmed. It’s much later, he guesses. The light has dimmed and Taehyun and Hyunbin are nowhere to be found, and someone is knocking on the front door.

Kenta sits up, blinking around the room, trying to get his bearings. “Um...hi?” he calls out, aiming his voice into the empty living room and past that, down the hall where the bedrooms are, just as a test, even though he’s not sure what he expects in response.

“Can you get the door, please?” Taehyun calls back from what Kenta thinks is the bathroom. “We’re going to a thing at Hyunbin’s work tonight, so I ordered you a pizza!”

Kenta starts salivating at the very mention of the _p_ word, launching himself off the couch and into the front hallway immediately. _Bless Noh Taehyun for everything he is and tries to be. Bless pizza. Bless--_

When Kenta throws the front door open, he stops blessing things in his head. He stops thinking entirely, actually, because all of a sudden, there’s Kim Donghan, in the flesh, carrying a single large pizza and wearing a delivery boy uniform, and he looks so cute and also _so_ scared to see Kenta. _How relatable._

Neither Donghan nor Kenta seem to know what to say. Half of Kenta wants to yell, wants to yell at Donghan for ruining his relationship and his life, but that would only be partially justified, and also, as previously discussed, Kenta’s not a fan of yelling, so he doesn’t do it. The other half of him, meanwhile, just kind of wants to climb Donghan like a tree. He’s wearing these _jeans,_ okay, jeans that are tight and have rips at the knees and Kenta bets they make his ass look truly excellent, but he’s not about to try for a glimpse. Maybe, depending on how this all shakes out, he can sneak a glance as Donghan’s walking away. He’s not above that, and he knows it.

Donghan’s not saying anything. He’s just standing, silently. Kenta can almost hear his brain leaking. Kenta waits. Finally, Donghan comes up with something.

“What the _fuck._ ”

_Also terribly relatable._

Kenta is about to respond, to try to say _something,_ except at that exact moment, the universe chooses to make everything about this one hundred and twelve percent more unnecessary.

Yongguk’s standing at the end of Taehyun’s walkway when he sees Donghan, and the neatly packed and tied garbage bag he’s carrying, full of Kenta’s pajamas (he’s been wearing the same two pairs for a month, and he’s over it), flops out of his hands and to the ground with a sad little _thunk._

Donghan turns around and sees Yongguk, but Kenta is also looking, observing the whole situation, and what _he_ sees is his beloved pizza start to slip from Donghan’s hands, and hell if that’s not something he can save, even if nothing else about this is salvageable, so Kenta makes a dive for it, cradling the now half-bent box in his arms after Donghan drops it and turning to slide it across the tile of the front hallway, towards the living room.

If everything else goes wrong, at least he’ll have pizza.

Just then, Taehyun pops his head around the corner, Hyunbin right behind him. “Oh, hey, guys! Wow, everyone’s all here. I have no idea how that happened. Huh.”

Donghan is trying to set Taehyun on fire with his eyes. Yongguk looks pale. Kenta glances back to make sure the pizza is okay. _Priorities._

Taehyun claps briskly, startling Kenta back to reality. “Okay! Well. This is fun. This looks like it’s gonna be a fun time. We’re just gonna go, so. You guys have a good night. All three of ya.” With that, Taehyun grabs Hyunbin’s hand and yanks him past Kenta and out the door and down the walkway towards a waiting taxi that unbelievably, no one else has tried to escape in. Yet.

They pass Donghan, with his fists balled up, looking torn between fear and resignation, and they pass Yongguk, the color slowly returning to his face. Red. Red’s the color he’s settling on, apparently.

Then, they’re in the car, and Taehyun has the audacity to give Kenta a big wave and a thumbs up from the backseat as the taxi drives away.

_Mother fucking Noh Taehyun, everyone._

Kenta is truly inconvenienced by all of this. But, it’s happening, he supposes, and moreover, it’s happening to him while he’s in his pajamas. Life is full of great indignities.

At least, when it’s over, there’ll be pizza.

Kenta sighs. “Well. Come in, then,” he mutters, pushing the front door open wider. Donghan obeys, although he doesn’t seem like he understands why. He’s crossing the threshold when Yongguk finally reacts enough to walk the rest of the way up to the door, too. When he gets there, he holds Kenta’s gaze for a long moment, and it’s different. It’s different than it has been, for a month. It’s...hopeful.

Kenta tries to smile a little. It probably looks more like a pained grimace.

It’ll have to do.

*

The pizza’s still sitting in the middle of the living room floor, between the three of them. Taunting Kenta.

He’s back on his favorite couch. Yongguk’s sitting on the other sofa. Donghan _was_ sitting in the only remaining seat, an ancient rocking chair that doesn’t go with any of Taehyun’s other decor and is an absolutely bizarre choice for a young, city boy like Taehyun, but every time he fidgeted, it set off a series of creaking noises and rocking motions that took this whole event from understated emotion straight up into high comedy, so Donghan got up after a few minutes, and he’s just been sort of...hovering, in various spots in the room.

After a while (after too long, Kenta feels), Yongguk makes an attempt at some sort of communication.

“So. Uh. How’ve you been, Donghan?”

Donghan stops pacing in tiny little circles, the same circles Kenta remembers him making when they were standing outside Jisung’s door all those months ago, and glances up at Yongguk. From where he’s sitting, Kenta can see the anxious look in his eyes. He tries not to let himself care too much, until he’s figured out the direction this is going to go.

Donghan sighs, his shoulders slumping a little. He’s giving up, but Kenta’s not sure on what.

“Fine. I’m fine, I guess.” He says the words, and then Donghan plops down onto the floor and opens Kenta’s pizza, stealing a slice. Kenta would protest, but he looks like he really needs it.

“I quit my other job,” Donghan says next. Kenta tries not to look surprised. Yongguk looks absolutely stunned.

Kenta sits up a little, clearing his throat. “Why?”

Donghan shrugs, picking mushrooms off the slice in his hand and tossing them into the box as he works his way down the slice. Kenta thinks very hard about protesting, now. He doesn’t.

“I didn’t want to do it anymore. It didn’t feel right anymore,” Donghan says.

Yongguk frowns. “And you’re doing this now?” he asks, waving a hand towards the pizza that Donghan delivered, that Donghan is currently solo-ing on.

Donghan chuckles. He tries. “Yeah. Until I figure out something better. Until I get through school, maybe.”

Kenta is still stuck on what Donghan said. _It didn’t feel right anymore._ He shouldn’t, he really _shouldn’t_ ask, he’s not supposed to open up that can of worms and dump it out on the floor Donghan’s sitting on, but he does it anyway.

“Why didn’t it feel right?” Kenta presses, ignoring the fact that Donghan was asking something else at the same time, something that sounded a lot like “are you two back together?”, because he either doesn’t want to, or can’t answer that, at the moment. Donghan must have heard that they broke up from somewhere. It shouldn't surprise Kenta as much as it does, that he knows.

“Why didn’t it feel right?” he asks again, just to make sure Donghan heard him.

He heard him. When Donghan looks up at Kenta, meeting his eyes for the first time since they all ended up here, he looks sad. He looks sad when he glances at Yongguk, too. He puts down the pizza, fiddling with the strings on his hoodie, swallowing so hard Kenta can hear it from the couch.

“Because,” he replies.

He doesn’t go on.

Yongguk watches Donghan, chin resting in his palm. “Because why?” he questions quietly. He sounds so soft, now, soft like Kenta remembers him being, before. Before all of this. When things were good.

Donghan doesn’t look at either of them while he answers. “Because I found out how hard it is to do that job, when you’re in love with someone. With...with more than one...someone.” The words trail off so quietly that Kenta has to lean forward to hear them, and then he sits back, not sure what to say. What to do.

He knows what he _wants_ to do. He wants to kiss Donghan, very much. He wants to kiss Donghan and tell him everything is forgiven and everything will be fine. He wants to kiss Yongguk, too, kiss him and tell him that it doesn’t matter what happened in the past, he wants a future.

He doesn’t do any of those things.

Instead, he waits.

Yongguk’s eyes look glassy. Kenta can feel how warm his own cheeks are, from the effort of trying not to sob like an idiot.

“I fucked it up,” Donghan is saying, staring at the pizza in the box like it’s going to tell him the secrets of the universe. “I fucked it all up, because I was terrified of you two. Of how you made me feel. I’ve never felt like that before, not for one person, let alone _two._ ”

He pauses. “Never felt like _this_ before. Um. Present...present tense,” Donghan adds, a little shyly. He’s so fucking cute, Kenta wants to die.

“Anyway,” he says, stretching his legs out with a soft little groan. “I’ve never had people before. Like that. Like...romantically. No one’s ever wanted me for that before. I didn’t know how to do it. It felt, like...it felt too big for me. I felt like I didn’t deserve it.”

Everything Sanggyun said was right, Kenta realizes. Miracles truly never cease.

Donghan stops talking after that, abruptly, as if he’s just remembered that he’s the strong, silent type, and that this is all very unnatural for him. Kenta doesn’t care, really. He’s heard all the things he needed to hear, to know what he wants next.

He looks over at Yongguk, sitting on Taehyun’s couch trying and failing to not cry. Kenta gets up after a moment, sitting next to him instead. He looks down at their hands, close but not touching. Kenta takes a deep breath, and slides his palm across the soft, cool skin of Yongguk’s hand, lacing their fingers together. Remembering the way that Yongguk’s hands, the hands that were always cold, warmed instantly when Kenta held them, and it’s still happening. There’s still a fire between them. Kenta hopes it’s big enough to keep burning.

“Donghan,” Yongguk starts softly, breaking the silence. “Ask that question, again.”

Donghan frowns, finishing the pizza crust and wiping his hands on his jeans. “What question?”

Yongguk starts to smile next to Kenta, just a little. Kenta sees it out of the corner of his eye, and then he turns his face to look, and Yongguk glances down at him at the same time, and suddenly, it’s all there. It’s all back. Maybe it never really left. All the love, and the feelings, and everything Kenta and Yongguk have been through are in Yongguk’s eyes, but beyond that, Kenta sees something new. A different piece of their puzzle that’s nearby, but still missing. The last piece they need, to figure all of this out. To move on. To heal.

Donghan.

Kenta squeezes Yongguk’s hand. He doesn’t say anything. He waits.

Yongguk licks his lips, thinking for a moment. “The one you were asking before. About Kenta and I.”

Kenta nearly giggles, staring down at his hand in Yongguk’s, and both of their hands, clasped together in Kenta’s lap.

Together, they watch realization dawn on Donghan’s face. They watch as he grins, just a little. Kenta can tell he’s still trying to be realistic about everything, trying to hope for the best but expect the worst. Kenta wishes he could do the same, but he’s always been too optimistic. It’s always gotten him in trouble.

Maybe it won’t, today.

Donghan leans back on his palms, grinning up at Kenta and Yongguk, and asks the question again. “Are you two back together?”

Kenta’s not a hundred percent sure how Yongguk wants this to go, what cheesy, romantic line he’s thinking of using to cap their whole saga off, tonight, so he stays quiet, for the moment.

Yongguk clears his throat, sitting up a bit next to Kenta. He chuckles softly. “No, we’re not.”

It’s an honest answer. Perhaps a bit too honest for Kenta’s liking. He really _should_ stop being so optimistic.

But then, Yongguk reaches out a hand to Donghan, and Donghan is just looking at it like he’s not sure what to do, and Yongguk smiles at Kenta, just once. Enough for Kenta to feel giddy all over again, even before Yongguk’s next words.

Even before Yongguk gazes back at Donghan, and says the words that will start the next chapter of their story, all of them, together.

“We were waiting for you.”


End file.
